ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Close-up of a young Red-Billed Seagull. The Red-billed Gull is a native of New Zealand, being found throughout the country and on outlying islands including the Chatham Islands and Sub-Antarctic islands. Its Maori name is Tarapunga or Akiaki.
This fine art print of an acrylic painting is based on a photograph I took of a juvenile seagull while walking by Army Bay in Whangaparaoa, north of Auckland. It was the calm appraisal that struck me. I remember the grass verdant beneath my hands and under the grey feathers, the sun strong on our heads, the distant call of other gulls. I crouched a few meters away and for a few minutes of quietude there was only the gull and I appraising one another.