Nature’s greatest splendours and the grandest of objects are not all that attract this artist’s eye. It is likely to be a ray of light catching a water glass and refracting onto the kitchen bench that sparks her excitement.

Words Kate Coughlan  Photos Tessa Chrisp

Phoebe Gander’s earliest memory is painting a duck. She thinks she was probably three at the time. Within a few years, her mother realised that Phoebe’s passion for drawing and painting was more than the idle curiosity of a child playing with texture and colour. A family friend, an art teacher, was soon giving the youngster lessons in drawing and painting, and creativity has been Phoebe’s calling almost ever since (if you don’t count the years when her children were small and drawing was such an energy load that there was nothing left-over for art).

Phoebe and husband Tim, left their lives in heartland England in their early 20s. She was a recent honours graduate of the prestigious Falmouth School of Art (major in textile design) with a freshly minted teaching diploma under her arm. Tim was also well-armed with education degrees. They were leaving England, its grim climate and costly housing, as much as going anywhere; France and New Zealand were the top contenders for their escape. They began a New Zealand residency application with the nonchalance of a nice-to-have dream. They passed every requirement and, all of a sudden, had to tell their families they were seriously considering heading off to live on the other side of the world.

They rattled into Gisborne with little to their name. A van they’d purchased on arrival in Auckland, an appetite to soak up the mild climate, a house deposit and plans for a great future. That was 20 years ago and they have never left.

‘Beauty isn’t only found in grand objects, famous landscapes. It can be that mundane spoon, shining in the morning light.’

Tim, now Dr Gander, and Phoebe, have three children, two of whom are teenagers. Their feet are firmly on the sandy soil of a fine property one street back from one of country’s best surfing beaches (for surfer Tim), with a studio for Phoebe adjacent to the garage.
‘I started playing with art again when my youngest, my daughter, started school,’ says Phoebe. ‘But I had lost all my confidence. I’d had such a big break, 10 years raising the children, that I had lost the connection to who I was
as an artist.’

Seeking inspiration and direction in where she wanted to go with her art, she started experimenting with resin art, recognising that it would fulfil some creative aspiration but not cause her too much self-criticism. ‘You pour the resin, so there’s a part of the process that is beyond your control as an artist, therefore I couldn’t blame myself entirely for the outcome. It allowed me to play with materials without judging myself and it was good for bridging a gap while I found confidence in my creativity. I was successful in that I sold quite a few works.

‘Pausing to note and observe all the glimmers in life, that is my creativity. I love the way that light makes ordinary things magical and I love evoking a sense of mindfulness.’

‘My first exhibition was a small group exhibition. As resin art became more popular, I started to ease myself back into painting abstract landscapes. My Instagram got a very big following which drew the attention of organiser’s of Art in the Park [a large exhibition held annually at Eden Park] so I exhibited abstract landscapes at that show.’

The appeal of her abstract landscapes was a surprise to Phoebe, who is overly modest about her talents and hates to toot her own horn. She is not, however, reticent about her commitment to the importance of art in her life. ‘At the beginning it was humbling to find people wanting to buy things I’d created and then I started to think, well maybe my art can be a career.’

The post-pandemic boom in home decor saw Phoebe picked up by galleries in Auckland and Dunedin as well as locally in Gisborne. She turned her eye towards creating still life works, something she hadn’t done since college but which she determinedly relearned.

Her creativity is often inspired by the unsung beauty in everyday, mundane objects. Where most of us see a water glass (be it half-empty or half-full), Phoebe sees light refracting through glass and reflections on a surface. Where we see a slice of lemon floating in a chilled glass of water, Phoebe sees glorious colour and bouncing shards of light.

‘Things that feel ordinary, I see as being beautiful and containing magic. Finding the glimmer and pausing to note and observe all the glimmers in life. That is my creativity. I love the way that light makes ordinary things magical and I love evoking a sense of mindfulness (looking for ‘glimmers’) by capturing these moments. There is a strong thread of nostalgia in the story behind each work.

‘It is so easy to just live your life, rushing ahead, thinking ‘I must do this’ and never being present in the moment to look around you and appreciate the beauty.’ For Phoebe, this is why society needs artists. ‘Maybe we see the world in a different way, and through our experience we can help others see it. Beauty isn’t only found in grand objects, famous landscapes. It can be that mundane spoon, shining in the morning light.’

‘Art made me happier and I am proud to show my kids that art is not a frivolous hobby and that being creative is important work to do.’

Alongside her still life work, Phoebe continues to paint abstract landscapes and appreciates the contrast between the two forms; the freedom of the abstract and the control of the still life. Still life is meticulous, taking hours of observation and detailed work. While abstracts are more fluid and expressive, they take much the same time to complete.

Alongside these complementary ways of expressing her creativity, Phoebe has recently begun to teach herself the art of hand-building ceramics. This involves taking a lump of clay and creating an object from it without the assistance of a potter’s wheel.

Art, however, is a fickle earner and with the state of the New Zealand economy, Phoebe turned back to her teaching degree (refreshed with a year post-grad training via Waikato University) and is now a part-time teacher at Gisborne Girls’ High. In this role she currently teaches technology – textile design, product design and food tech, as well as teaching art. She finds inspiration for her own creativity in her interaction with students. For a woman who likes to get her teeth into a new challenge, she says the balance is perfect between the teaching role and the opportunity to pursue her art.

Phoebe and other local Makarori and Wainui Beach artists hold a SheShed Exhibition each year towards the end of November. Last year the proceeds created an art scholarship for a promising local secondary school student.

Phoebe firmly believes art is important and that it helped her through a difficult time in her life when she was trying to manage small children with her only family support half a world away.

‘Rediscovering my creativity was therapeutic. Art made me happier and I am proud to show my kids that art is not a frivolous hobby and that being creative is important work to do.’