A Changing Day in the Mackenzie

I was travelling through the Mackenzie Country when I saw it — an anonymous cloud rolling in across the basin, slow and certain, the kind that makes you stop and just watch. It was already cold. There'd been snow, and the ground had that particular stillness that comes after a heavy fall. Beautiful, but with an edge to it.

What struck me was the contradiction of the moment. It was calm and peaceful — the light was extraordinary, the kind you only get in that part of New Zealand — but it looked like anything could change at any moment. That tension is what I was trying to hold onto in the painting. The Mackenzie isn't a gentle landscape. It's wild country, even when it's quiet.

There's something about the scale of it too. The Southern Alps sitting heavy in the distance, the flat braided plains stretching out in front of them. It makes you feel very small, and very awake. I've painted that part of the South Island more than anywhere else, and it still surprises me every time.

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