Rebekah Pearson is a Coromandel-based multimedia artist who published her first children's book this year. Photo / Supplied
Rebekah Pearson is a Coromandel-based multimedia artist who published her first children's book this year. Photo / Supplied
Ireland-born Coromandel artist Rebekah Pearson is fascinated with collective nouns and the native birds of Aotearoa so she has combined her interests in a children's book - A Tribe of Kiwi.
Pearson's illustrations for the book, along with her ceramic, glass, and print works, are now showing at the LockettGallery in Whanganui where owner Lesley Stead said they had been attracting plenty of interest.
"Rebekah's quintessentially Kiwi book illustrates a selection of quirky collective nouns of Aotearoa's birds," Stead said.
"Whether it is a Tinntinnabulation of Bellbirds, a Gawky of Pukeko, a Haunting of Ruru or a Confusion of Grey Warblers, these original illustrations are bringing plenty of smiles and chuckles to our gallery visitors."
A Tribe of Kiwi is Pearson's first book and, alongside the illustrations, there are prints of Pearson's educational nature posters and displays of her three-dimensional glass and ceramic lamps on display at the Lockett Gallery.
Pearson has strong connections to the Whanganui arts community and has produced work at local studios.
Her Nikau lights are a combination of blown glass made at NZ Glassworks with Philip Stokes and raku fired ceramics made with the help of Duncan Smith at the Whanganui Potters Society.
Pearson also made ceramic ruru and puriri moths at Ivan Vostinar's pottery studio in Castlecliff.
Rebekah Pearson's Nikau lights are on display in the window of Lockett Gallery in Whanganui.
Photo / Bevan Conley
So how did an Irish artist find her way to the Coromandel and form connections in Whanganui?
"I studied ceramics in Dublin and went to Australia hoping to do a stop animation course," Pearson said.
"It was going to be too expensive so instead I enrolled for a course that offered millinery, shoemaking and glass-blowing."
Her glass tutors were Scott Redding and Philip Stokes who would later move to Whanganui to run NZ Glassworks.
"They became friends and, when I moved here with my Kiwi husband who I met in Melbourne, it was Scotty and Philip who introduced us to the Coromandel when we attended their wedding there."
Pearson has lived at Tuateawa in the Coromandel since 2015, and has developed a strong interest in native birdlife, becoming involved in several conservation projects including mural paintings in the region.
The Lockett Gallery, next to Paige's Book Gallery in Guyton St, is New Zealand's only illustrator gallery and each exhibition has a two-month duration.
The gallery and exhibition are a stop on the Coastal Arts Trail, which includes Whanganui, Manawatū and Taranaki.
