About

Zoë Nash is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Her brightly coloured, celebratory works explore a slow and mindful accumulation of repeated and highly detailed mark making. Reflecting her love of nature, Zoë’s works increasingly draw on selected plant and flower motifs as inspiration. Frequently initiated by things seen, things spoken, or things remembered, narrative and nostalgia are also used to trigger personal connection with viewers. 

With a set of clearly defined intentions but no pre-conceived expectations regards outcome, Zoë’s works slowly, carefully, intuitively, and often painstakingly, evolve and build up over time. Through steady repeats of simple techniques, Zoë creates surfaces and spaces that are full of vibrant pattern. These cause visual disruption and toy with perspective and depth. Ever conscious of how each mark added both influences and is influenced by those around it, Zoë’s work relies on an ongoing process of cross-referencing, editing, refining, and adding more and more until the composition is balanced, cohesive, and evokes the desired emotional response.

“I love how my artworks grow and evolve with every mark made or action taken so that in the end, just a like a knitted jumper, the whole becomes more
than the sum of its parts.”

Zoë has a Master of Fine Arts degree (Whitecliffe, 2002), a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and History (University of Auckland, 1991) and adult teaching qualifications (Manukau Institute of Technology, 2005).

Finalist nominations include the Parkin Drawing Prize, the Trust Waikato Contemporary Art Awards, the Small Sculpture Prize at the Waiheke Community Art Gallery, and several Finalist nominations in the Walker & Hall Waiheke Art Awards, including receiving the Zinni Douglas Merit Award. Zoë is also a recipient of the Whitecliffe Post Grad Scholarship. She currently lives in coastal west Auckland, creating from her garden studio, as well as being actively involved in arts education.

Zoë spent a large portion of her early working life in publishing and graphic design, and it is here that she developed her ongoing love of colour, pattern, contrast, shape and form. It is through the world of design that she gradually moved into teaching and mentoring. And so, alongside her arts practice, Zoë has now spent close to three decades teaching and developing curriculum across both the graphic design and fine art departments of Taranaki Polytechnic (WITT) where she was a lecturer for five years, Natcoll (Yoobee) where she tutored for four years, and Whitecliffe where she was part-time faculty for over eight years. She has also been heavily involved in community arts education on an ongoing basis. Zoë now teaches regularly at Browne School of Art where she has been since it was founded in 2013.

Zoë recently did a podcast with Creative Matters which you can listen to by clicking here.

See more from Zoë at:
Instagram: @ms_zoenash
Facebook: ZoeNashArt