Essays

Alice lies stretched along the warm edge of the pool, her body relaxed, her chin resting on the tiles. The water below her is impossibly blue, and it is filled—quite absurdly—with tennis balls. They drift and bob, some half-submerged, some catching the light just...

Extinction A toy can hold a whole universe in its hollow body. In Extinction, that universe is both vivid and doomed, as if childhood wonder has been drafted into service to carry the weight of the adult world. A strange creature — the last of its kind — stands on the...

At first glance, this painting seems ominous; the ship is in peril, and disaster awaits.Why do we jump to conclusions when presented with a story or, in this case, a painting? When did we lose our curiosity to discover facts? Why are different points of view so...

Sometimes the smallest, simplest things open the largest doors. Long before screens, batteries, or software updates, a few sheets of balsa wood and a printed cardboard box were enough to launch a lifetime fascination. Balsa wood gliders were cheap, light, and honest....

Märklin’s Viktoria returns once again, held in the grip of winter. She sits calmly in a pool of clear blue-green water, a deliberate opening carved into the ice that surrounds her. Snow blankets the ground, softening the landscape and muting sound, while the ship...

Alice is the guard dog, or at least that is what she tells herself. Perched high in a roughly built tree hut, she peers out through the slats, her white face framed by weathered timber and late-afternoon light. Below her, on the grass softened by daisies and long...

Solitude presents an antique pond yacht paused in a moment of perfect stillness, resting within the glassy expanse of an infinity pool. Its white hull, trimmed with restrained green stripes, feels purposeful and elegant, a design born of patience and careful...

One person’s junk is another’s treasure, and in Prized Possessions that familiar phrase quietly underpins the entire scene. This painting steps into the curious, deeply personal world of collectors, where objects gather meaning far beyond their material worth. Here,...

Alice pauses at the edge of the pool, front paws stretched forward, head lowered, nose almost touching the water. Below her, the swimming pool opens into a cool blue grid, tile by tile, descending into quiet depths. At the very bottom sits a single tennis ball,...

There is a calm that settles over the water when the wind does just enough. Not silence, not stillness, but a gentle agreement between sail and air. Seabreeze sits in that moment. The yacht is poised, sails filled but unhurried, waiting for nothing more than the next...

There is something quietly magical about clockwork toys. They belong to a slower rhythm, a time when play began not with a switch or a screen, but with a key turned carefully in the fingers. The title Winding Down speaks directly to this ritual. Both toys in the...

The rocket stands upright in the park, improbably tall, impossibly earnest. It is a toy, unmistakably so, yet it carries itself with the confidence of something far more serious. Its fins are crisp, its body clean, its colours bold in a way that belongs to another...

The Captain sits calmly in the shallows, a small but assured presence in a world scaled far larger than itself. Schuco’s Nautico electric motor yacht is the undisputed hero of this painting, its crisp blue deckhouse, white hull, and maroon detailing cutting cleanly...

First slip or leg slip? Are you a righty or a lefty? The question barely has time to settle before the ball is already on its way. Backyard cricket thrives on that uncertainty. It belongs to summer, to BBQ smoke drifting across the lawn, to long evenings when shadows...

At first glance, Line Honours looks like a race already won. Three pond yachts slide across a swimming pool with the quiet confidence of vessels that know the course, even if the course itself is borrowed. This is not a regatta, not really. There are no crowds, no...

There is a quiet confidence in the way Karman arrives. She does not roar or rush; she simply rolls into view, content to be exactly what she is. The familiar curves of the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia are instantly recognisable, even when filtered through the charming...

Alice is back, and this time there is no urgency, no chase, no ball to retrieve. She has found the perfect spot: a wooden bench in the shade, directly beneath a billboard promising the best ice cream in town. The day feels warm but unhurried, the kind of day that...

This could be any street in any town. That is part of Your Turn's quiet confidence. A familiar footpath runs alongside a gently curving road, bordered by clipped hedges and evenly spaced trees. Nothing announces itself as special, yet everything feels loaded with...

This is the third act, and by now the mood has shifted. The optimism of We Come in Peace has been stripped away, replaced by something heavier, more complicated. Shoot to Kill does not ask who is right or wrong. It simply observes what happens when play turns serious,...

Some decisions only feel important when you are a child. Choosing an ice cream was one of them. You would stand there, barefoot and impatient, scanning the list of flavours as if the future depended on it. For me, the answer was always the same: a triple scoop in a...

Here is a moment, just before the weather turns, when the air feels suspended. Stopover lives in that pause. A Beechcraft 18 on floats circles above a rooftop pool, its steady orbit calm and deliberate, as if it too is undecided. Below, the water lies impossibly...

Carnival arrives quietly, almost shyly, half-hidden behind trees and shrubs, as if the fun must be discovered rather than announced. The Ferris wheel rises above the foliage like a promise, its curved spine catching the last light of day. You don’t see the crowds or...

    Moon Patrol is one of those paintings where the subject arrives already loaded with history, noise, and ambition. The toy at its centre is an outstanding example of one of the most sought-after comic space toys of the twentieth century: the 1935 Marx Buck Rogers...

The Turismo Packard sits low and long, as if the future has briefly pulled over and agreed to wait. It is a tin toy, made by Payá in Spain, yet it carries the confidence of a full-sized dream. Streamlined, purposeful, and quietly theatrical, this is a car designed for...

Marklin’s Viktoria returns once more, but this time the sea has vanished. In its place is an endless field of sunflowers, their heavy heads turned toward the light, a golden ocean stretching to the horizon. The ship presses forward regardless, its dark hull cutting...

Light Air is a painting about restraint, patience, and the quiet optimism that lives in small movements. In aeromodelling, “light air” refers to those near-perfect conditions when the breeze is barely there at all, when flight depends less on power and more on...

First Class continues the story of Jack and Jill, two small travellers with big intentions. They have appeared before, usually on the edges of things, waiting, watching, quietly plotting their next move. Here, they are dressed for departure once again, surrounded by...

This is the fourth time I have painted Märklin’s "Viktoria" passenger steam ship, and by now the vessel carries its own history. It has already appeared as an idea, as a presence, and as a symbol of departure and return. In earlier paintings, the Viktoria borrowed the...

Some paintings arrive fully formed, unannounced, as if they have been waiting patiently for the right moment to surface. Summer in a Vase was one of those. It did not begin as an idea, a sketch, or even a vague intention. It appeared suddenly, prompted by...

Obsession is the third painting in the Alice series, and by now the pattern is unmistakable. The tennis ball has moved beyond being a toy or a reward; it has become an idea. An anchor. A quiet force that pulls everything else into its orbit. Alice, the labradoodle at...

Hold the Line is the second chapter in the Toy Soldiers Versus Robots series, and like any good sequel, it deepens the tension while widening the world. Where We Come in Peace introduced the standoff; this painting captures the moment when hesitation has passed. Lines...

Destination Moon begins not with science, but with waiting and waiting for the countdown to finish. Waiting for permission to imagine. As a child in the mid-1970s, I remember watching the last of the moon landings on a small black-and-white television, the image...

Some things stay with you quietly for years, waiting for the right moment. The classic pond yacht was one of those things for me. I admired them from a distance for decades, knowing one day I would own one, but also knowing that some dreams require patience. Nearly...

Downhill Racers is about speed, gravity and imagination. It is about how a simple slope can become a racetrack, and how a child’s world can be transformed by nothing more than a concrete path and a handful of toy cars. The painting captures that moment just before the...

Every childhood has a geography of its own, a map drawn not by roads but by permission. There were places you were meant to be, and places you discovered for yourself. The forest at Ōtaki Beach belonged firmly to the second category. It was not marked, fenced, or...

Preseason sits quietly between seasons, between intentions and outcomes. The rugby posts stand tall and familiar, yet the field beneath them tells a different story. This is not a winter ground, not yet marked by mud, breath, and boots. Instead, it is a hay paddock in...

Dream Job is a painting about purpose, but not the kind we spend years searching for or redefining. It is about the kind that arrives fully formed, unquestioned and instinctive. Alice, our labradoodle, sits quietly on a grass tennis court with a tennis ball held...

In Blue Skies, the aeroplane has finally slipped the last constraint. Where Freedom and Final Flight still negotiated the fence — that recurring marker of boundary, suburbia, and the measured limits of the everyday — here there is nothing to cross, nothing to clear....

The constant gardener is not in a hurry. This is not the frantic trimming of edges before guests arrive, nor the rushed pass of a modern mower set to autopilot. This is a measured, deliberate act, one that begins long before the first line is cut. The red Masport reel...

En route suggests movement without arrival, a moment suspended between where we have been and where we are going. It is a phrase that carries optimism and uncertainty in equal measure. In this painting, the journey has already begun. The tin seaplane sits lightly on...

Patience is a quiet discipline. It does not announce itself or demand attention. It waits. In Game of Patience, everything rests in that pause between effort and outcome, the suspended moment when the ball has done almost all the work and yet nothing is decided. The...

Follow Me is the largest painting I have made to date. A triptych, each panel measuring 125 cm high by 95 cm wide, it demanded more space, more patience, and more belief than any work before it. Painted in a small studio, the practical challenge was immediate. I could...

Arrival is a painting about return, but not resolution. It brings back two familiar characters from Travelling Companions (#12), now older, quieter, and standing in winter rather than the warm expectancy of their first departure. Time has passed. Six years separate...

The Technofix tinplate motorcycle is frozen in motion, its rider crouched low, eyes fixed on a destination we cannot see. This is Red Racer, a machine built for speed, yet here it moves through a quiet, imagined landscape where sound is absent and time has slowed. The...

There is a particular quiet that belongs to early mornings in small towns, a silence broken only by birdsong and the distant promise of the day ahead. Field of Dreams captures that moment when the world is still half asleep, and possibility hangs low over the land...

They stand tall and still, their vast grey frames etched against the Auckland sky, monumental and precise. These cranes dominate the waterfront, their scale undeniable, their presence constant. Painted in cool industrial greys, they catch the last light of the day as...

Pride sits comfortably at the front of the seven deadly sins, polished and self-assured, convinced it deserves the lead role. In this painting, Pride is not loud or aggressive; it is quiet, manicured, and carefully maintained. It lives behind a low fence, in straight...

Stowaways continues the story of Jack and Jill, first introduced in essay 25, Jack and Jill. They are rascals by nature, quietly observant, always alert to opportunity. In this painting, they have found themselves at a passenger wharf, poised on the edge of a journey...

The title promises reassurance, yet the scene tells a different story. We Come in Peace opens on a quiet suburban street, the kind of place where nothing much happens and everything is familiar. Trees frame the road, houses sit calmly behind hedges, and the sky is...

Like sliding doors, life offers us different paths. Some lead to growth and fulfilment, others to endurance and routine. Often, the choice is not dramatic or announced; it arrives quietly, disguised as habit, necessity, or the simple act of showing up early for work....

Greed is the third of the seven deadly sins, and perhaps the most insidious. Unlike anger or pride, greed rarely announces itself loudly. It works quietly, steadily, accumulating, taking more than is needed and convincing itself that this is reasonable, even...

The dress stands upright before anything else stirs. It has no body, yet it holds the memory of one. A mannequin is an absence made useful, a placeholder for attention, and here it supports the final shape of a thought. The seamstress has stepped back. The work is...

Fetch introduces a new subject into my work rather than a turning point in direction. On the surface, it presents a simple scene: a dog sitting patiently on the pavement, looking up at a framed image of a tennis ball suspended against a blue sky, with a single cloud...

Golden Arrow explores velocity remembered rather than experienced. Its subject is The Schilling Limited Edition Speed Car Golden Arrow, a tinplate clockwork toy whose unique copper body compresses the drama of land speed records into something that fits in the palm of...

In Secret Admirer, we find ourselves once again at a threshold, a recurring and significant space within the 1–100 series where choices are made, gestures are left behind, and outcomes remain uncertain. A closed front door dominates the composition, formal and...

Why Do We Live in Cities? Grey buildings rise like jagged teeth, concrete and steel stretching into clouded skies. Beneath them, we scurry between meetings and deadlines, heads bowed, ears filled with the ceaseless hum of engines and construction. Cities promise...

There was always something magical about a summer campsite by the sea. The retro caravan, painted in sun-faded orange and cream, stood like a loyal companion beneath the trees, its aluminium trim catching the late afternoon light. Its awning stretched out bravely, as...

Indian Summer, a moment suspended between seasons, memory, and motion. The painting depicts a solitary tree standing in a vast field of long, golden grass, its branches heavy with late-summer foliage. From one limb hangs a simple tyre swing, motionless yet full of...

Jack and Jill, painting number 25 in the 1–100 series and the second work in which dogs take centre stage. As with the earlier painting, Travelling Companions, these animals are not incidental companions but quiet protagonists, anchoring the emotional tone of the...

The scene unfolds with a quiet theatricality, as if the landscape itself has paused to acknowledge an arrival that may or may not be intended. A broad balustrade dominates the foreground, its warm terracotta tones forming a barrier between the viewer and the rolling...

Rocket 54 stands upright like a promise, its nose pointed skyward, waiting patiently for a countdown that may never come. In Rocketman, the tinplate toy is both hero and relic, a beautifully preserved example of mid-twentieth-century Japanese design, created at a time...

Match Point is not an action but a suspension. It is the held breath after the swing, before applause or silence decides who owns the moment. In this painting, the tennis ball balances on the top of the net, neither side yet rewarded. Gravity waits. So does meaning....

Final Flight holds a quiet instant between preparation and release, a suspended breath where anticipation outweighs consequence. This is the second balsa wood, rubber-powered aeroplane in the series, following Freedom, yet it occupies a very different emotional space....

A moment of quiet suspense unfolds at the threshold between inside and out. A figure stands partially concealed by a doorway, holding an abundant bouquet of deep red roses that entirely obscures their face. The anonymity is deliberate and powerful: this is not a...

Stumps is a quiet painting filled with echoes of noise. At first glance, it shows an ordinary suburban scene: a modest garage, a stretch of green lawn, long shadows cast by the late sun, and a simple set of cricket stumps standing patiently with the ball resting...

Uncharted Waters presents a moment of quiet momentum: a pristine blue-and-white speedboat gliding across calm, luminous water, its wake gently rippling the surface rather than disturbing it. The subject is a J.E.P. wind-up toy boat from 1930s France, marked “No. 2,”...

Learning to Share is a painting that captures a quiet moment filled with humour, tenderness, and a surprisingly deep emotional lesson. At first glance, the scene appears simple. Two adults stand close together in a doorway, with their legs and feet becoming the main...

Uncertain Outcome captures a moment suspended between awe and apprehension, an image that feels both cinematic and deeply personal. It is also the first painting in the series to introduce Märklin’s Viktoria Passenger Steam Ship, an arrival that feels both deliberate...

Pond Yacht is a quiet celebration of a pastime that feels both ordinary and enchanted—a small craft, made for a small stretch of water, yet carrying the romance of the open sea. In this second Painting of mine to explore pond yachting (the first being Sunday Sailors),...

At first glance, the painting feels peaceful, sunlit and orderly, yet beneath that calm lies a current of anticipation. A homemade go-kart, freshly painted and gleaming red, rests at the top of a steep, curving path. It has not yet begun its descent, but everything in...

  Sunday Sailors captures a quiet ritual from another time, when leisure unfolded slowly and imagination alone was enough to set whole worlds in motion. At the centre of the painting sits an antique pond yacht, displayed in a shop window not as a toy awaiting use, but...

Travelling Companions marks a gentle but meaningful shift within the 1 in 100 series. It is the first time dogs appear in this body of work. Their presence introduces a new emotional layer, one grounded in loyalty, patience, and quiet connection. A black Scottie and a...

Bluebird captures a quiet moment charged with memory and restrained anticipation. In the foreground, a person crouches low, hands loosely gathered near their knees, posture balanced between stillness and expectancy. The face is unseen, yet the body language reveals...

Shaped by childhood memories, Only Between the Flags is a painting that portrays the sea as beautiful but never to be taken lightly. Set on the black-sand shoreline of Ōtaki, a small seaside town north of Wellington on New Zealand’s North Island, the work captures the...

Hokey Pokey is a painting that feels instantly familiar, like a remembered moment from childhood, held up to the light. Its subject is simply an ice cream cone poised on a small ledge beside a caravan, with a sweep of ocean and sky beyond, yet the effect is richly...

A suspended moment that feels both intimate and cinematic. A grand staircase rises toward a pair of stately green doors framed by sculpted trees. Light falls across the steps in glowing bands, creating a rhythm of shadow and illumination that draws the eye upward. Yet...

An image of leisure so pristine it becomes slightly unsettling. A lone figure reclines beside a swimming pool, her body elongated along the pale deck, eyes closed, face turned upward toward a sky that feels too clean to be entirely natural. The landscape behind her is...

A childhood crisis in miniature: the moment when desire, helplessness, and hope coexist. At first glance, the scene feels calm. An open sky stretches wide, a soft canopy of leaves frames the upper edge, and the simple geometry of a red roof settles quietly beneath....

Freedom is often imagined as noise and speed, as engines roaring and wheels lifting from the ground. Yet in this painting titled Freedom, the most important moment arrives after the power has gone. The vintage balsa-wood aeroplane, once driven by the tight coil of a...

  Intention does not concern departure or arrival; it dwells instead in the in-between, the pause. It captures the fragile will-I-won’t-I moment, when possibility hangs in the air, and nothing has yet been decided. The scene feels suspended, as though time itself has...

Everything in this composition feels paused, caught between intention and consequence, like the moment just before or just after a confession. The room is quiet but not empty; it is full of signals. Light, objects, and memory all lean toward a single question: Has...

At first glance, the scene appears simple: a small table set for two, a vase of white calla lilies, two glasses, and a carefully wrapped gift. Yet the longer one looks, the more the composition begins to feel like a carefully arranged pause, an interval between what...

      The room appears to be holding its breath. Late afternoon light enters quietly through the window, tinted green and gold, settling across the furniture in long, deliberate shadows. The day is not yet over, but its urgency has faded, replaced by a moment of...