Joanna Fieldes

"When I create a painting or print, I want to stimulate and capture the viewer's mind, cause hesitation, so that my artworks have a better chance at being looked at, being seen again.    I like to evoke thoughts and contemplation, awaken the mind with a twist of humour or fate”.  

My mahi (work) articulates serious narratives of provocative art that bring to life New Zealand's past and present. Often, I juxtapose a tableau of vessels, in anthropomorphic guise, to represent both the 'imported' and indigenous found within a typical New Zealand landscape.

Ceramic vessels dominate my work as unique containers bearing colonial culture - the colonizers who colonized themselves - bearing links to our history and the impact on today and in the future. I also explore themes of domesticity using ‘ceramic-like’ objects as metaphors for social comment and thought.

I am always mindful of my ancestors, early colonial settlers who attempted to create a "Little England" on these shores, through their endeavours to settle by taming the land, farming, and some preaching Christianity. They planted the seeds for our world today and our future.

Joanna Fieldes (née Abraham), born in 1959, Feilding, New Zealand.

She grew up in the region of Northern Wairarapa, at the foot of the Tararua Ranges on a sheep and cattle farm, the house surrounded by a huge woodland garden, which her parents created. From an early age her parents nurtured her creative talents and love of our flora and fauna, with a healthy respect for our environment. In 2021 Joanna moved to Whangarei, after living on the outskirts of Auckland for nearly thirty years. Joanna is mostly a self-taught artist, which has enabled her to develop a unique style of her own, unencumbered by conventional modes of representation. She has a strong interest in New Zealand history and healthy respect for both Pākehā and Māori cultures. Using her art as a form of storytelling, she ‘takes history for a walk’, with no firm conclusions, she gives food for thought. Since the early 1990’s, her paintings (predominately oil) have been successfully exhibited in solo, joint and group shows in public and private galleries around New Zealand. Her artwork is featured in the 2007 Celebrate Art Resource Pack, under the title ‘Identity and Belonging’, used by teachers in schools in both New Zealand and Australia. In more recent years, she has extended her art practice to that of a printmaker, using her painterly style to create her prints.