My art practice after graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, has evolved over several years to a point where I think my strongest work is yet to come. During 2025 I became a first time grandmother. To celebrate this I painted a portrait of my son his wife and their first child.  My son met and married into a refugee family form Syria. His wife came to New Zealand as a two year old, so her parents and their children have refugee status, here in New Zealand. I find sometimes in life there are connections that happen almost outside of ourselves that are intrinsically part of who we are and how we view the world. This portrait  was submitted into the Adam Portraiture Awards for 2026 and was consequently not accepted. In this regard it is essentially  œuvre refusée and perhaps I could personally say this may be considered something of a mystery.  In any regard it is also a story of multi-cultural  and diverse histories. Portraiture is about our world and therefore it can be about the interesting and compelling stories we may not necessarily experience ourselves . Welcome to my burgeoning foray into portraiture. I look forward to developing this genre within my studio practice.