I'm Rebecca, a poet and painter from Aotearoa.
I grew up on a Canterbury high-country sheep and beef farm, roaming beech forest valleys and tussock-clad mountain peaks in the Southern Alps. Nowadays I'm based in Wellington where I work in communications and practice art in the background.
My first chapbook of poems launched last August in the revival of the AUP New Poets series. AUP New Poets 5 showcases the fresh new work of three emerging writers: myself, Sophie van Waardenberg, and Carolyn DeCarlo.
I hold a Masters' in nonfiction creative writing with Distinction from the International Institute of Modern Letters, and my poems have been published widely in New Zealand. I have also written non-fiction for science education publications, academic journals, and corporate comms.
I’m an unschooled visual artist. I mainly paint in oils but tinker with other media. Recent projects include oil paintings, polymer clay sculptures, digital illustration, zines, and murals. In 2012 I was awarded the national NZQA Award for Top Scholar in Painting.
My visual artwork is informed by the natural world and botanical illustration; mythology, symbolism, and the occult; and feminine queerness. My paintings are currently concerned with the sublimity and discomfort of bodies and ecosystems in the anthropocene.
Contact me if you're interested in a commission, collaboration, or performance opportunity.