My name is Megan Park and I am a New Zealand artist who paints in oil and acrylic. My artistic style varies from “Impressionism” to “Painterly Realism” (that is how someone once described it)… I just say “I paint and I always have”. My influences include Van Gogh, Picasso in all his phases, and amazing women Georgia O’Keefe and Frida Kahlo, while my favourite New Zealand Artists are Evelyn Page and Phillip Clairmont… and the list goes on.

I was born in Durban, South Africa to Kiwi parents and after they finished travelling they returned to New Zealand and my childhood was spent in Rotorua. I now live in Mount Maunganui – as close to my favourite subjects (sun, sand, sea and surf) as I possibly can.

Studies included Art, Art History and Fashion Design and lead on to Visual Communication Design and Textile Design at Wellington Polytechnic. I also completed Visual Arts Study in Rotorua while earning extra income painting murals, sign writing and blackboard artwork. I come from a family of contemporary New Zealand Maori artists (Paratene Matchitt and Gina Matchitt) and my own Maori tribal affiliations are with Tuhoe and Whakatohea.

I went on my OE in 1998 and moved to New York where I discovered the international art world. I painted while travelling and my artwork is still on the walls of some New York clients. I returned to New Zealand in 2000 and continued to paint but did not exhibit anything until joining the Tauranga Society of Artists in 2015. Since then I have exhibited regularly with help from the Rotorua Museum and Art Gallery, Creative Tauranga, The Incubator, The Garden & Arts Festival and the Tauranga Society of Artists. My work has been published in the Imago Mundi Kiwi Consciousness book with 209 other contemporary New Zealand Artists and exhibited in Italy.

I am an Executive and Exhibition Committee member for the Tauranga Society of Artists and continue to create art on commission while exhibiting at any opportunity. I also have my art online via my website, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter art pages.