Stephanie Harlan

"I’m a Tauranga-based artist and my work is very much led by feeling rather than a set plan. I love texture, layers and imperfection, and I often use things like sand and coffee alongside paint to build up my surfaces. I tend to work intuitively and let each painting find its own way rather than deciding exactly what it needs to be before I start.

The beach is probably my biggest influence. It’s where my head goes quiet. I love the rawness of the coastline, the changing colours, weathered surfaces and the marks left behind by water, wind and time. A lot of that naturally finds its way into my work."