Margaret Fairhall - Current Works

My career as an artist began in the early seventies, when I decided to learn the fundamentals of oil painting. I was living on Stewart Island at the time and had little option but to take a correspondence course.

I now find acrylics to be everything I’ve wanted in a medium.  They combine the best properties of both oil and watercolours.  They can be applied with a knife in an impasto method (which is how I like to apply them) and they can also be washed over the canvas in a similar way to watercolours. 

I have been painting almost exclusively with acrylics now for around five years.  Since that first brush with art and the correspondence course, I have painted on a part-time and now a full-time basis in many different localities around the South Island for over 30 years, exhibiting widely and winning awards.

My own area of interest is the coastline and all it contains.  Although I live and work in Nelson I also have a holiday place complete with studio down on Stewart Island.  I like nothing better than to be down on the island painting.  The wonderful unspoiled nature of the place draws me back often.