Helena Terry (& partner)Country: New Zealand Artist Discipline: Sculpture/ Carving, Painting, Drawing/ Illustration Instagram: @helenaray Website: helenaray.com |
Helena Terry is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans illustration, oil painting, and kinetic sculpture. She began her artistic journey with illustration, exploring colour and the female form through both paint and digital mediums. Since relocating to the Waitākere Ranges, Helena draws profound inspiration from the surrounding landscape and the mysticism she senses there. Her oil paintings capture emotional states and natural influences, while her kinetic mobiles, crafted from wire and aluminium, play with balance, form, and colour to create dynamic pieces that move with air currents and interact with light and shadow. Across all mediums, Helena aims to infuse her work with energy, rhythm, and a deep connection to the natural world, weaving together her inner experiences with the environment around her.
Having recently begun working with clay, Helena is excited by the opportunity to engage with the natural elements of clay, raw materials, and fire during her residency at Driving Creek. She hopes to explore clay through themes of movement, colour, nature, magic, and the feminine, deepening her understanding of glaze and firing techniques. Fascinated by the idea of creating ritual objects and vessels that connect to nature and femininity, she is also eager to experiment with kinetic mobiles in this new medium. Helena's aspiration for the residency is to develop a body of work that reflects these explorations and can be exhibited in the future, while learning from and connecting with other artists in this inspiring setting.
Louise PickfordCountry: New Zealand Artist Discipline: Pottery/ Ceramics Instagram: @pickfordlouise |
Louise Pickford is a New Zealand-based ceramic artist whose practice encompasses hand-building forms and experimenting with glazes, particularly celadon. Currently working with an electric kiln firing to Cone 6, she explores commercial clays and glazes with a keen interest in developing her own unique glaze recipes. Louise has a rich background in ceramics, having trained at Otago School of Art and gained experience throwing for Tony Sly in Hamilton. Her artistic journey reflects a blend of traditional techniques and personal exploration, with a strong admiration for wood firing methods that influence her evolving style.
Louise's return to ceramics marks a deeply personal and motivated chapter in her life, following years spent in diverse pursuits including design studies and international travel, as well as caring for her family's kiwifruit orchard. Now one year into rekindling her connection with clay, she is eager to delve into wood firing and higher temperature stoneware, aiming to build her own kiln. At Driving Creek, Louise hopes to expand her technical skills and develop her own glazes, moving beyond reliance on commercial products, while contributing to gallery and exhibition opportunities during her five-week residency.
Mahalia Leckner 2/3 AUSCountry: Australia Artist Discipline: Pottery/ Ceramics Instagram: @mahalia_ceramics_ Website: mahaliaceramics.com |
Mahalia Leckner is a ceramic artist based in Newcastle on Awabakal and Worimi Country, Australia, whose work bridges functional pottery and experimental clay art. Working from The Soap Factory in Mayfield East, she creates handmade basins and bathroom ceramics through wheel-throwing, drawing on her background in architectural design for structural inspiration. Deeply engaged with the raw origins of her medium, Mahalia explores natural resources by collecting and testing local materials, crushing and mixing rocks, and firing them to investigate glaze technology and the materiality of place. Her practice is intuitive and iterative, developing bodies of work that respond to the landscape and the disconnection between ceramic materials and their origins, as seen in her solo exhibition Rock Hunter at Back to Back Gallery.
During her residency at Driving Creek, Mahalia aims to deepen her engagement with local New Zealand materials and the community of ceramic artists. She hopes to expand her experimental approach through hands-on learning and support offered by the residency, fostering connections with the land and people. Beyond honing her craft, Mahalia values the sense of community that residency life offers, seeking to build friendships and creative relationships while immersing herself in the unique environment that Driving Creek provides. This experience aligns with her ongoing interest in how clay evolves across iterations and how the environment shapes ceramic art.
Mel MephamCountry: New Zealand Artist Discipline: Pottery/ Ceramics, Drawing/ Illustration Instagram: @a_placeofdreams Website: aplaceofdreams.co.nz |
Mel Mepham is a New Zealand-based artist whose practice spans pottery, ceramics, drawing, and illustration. She works primarily with thrown white stoneware, employing underglaze, clear glaze, and occasionally a touch of gold lustre to create her pieces. Mel’s work is deeply rooted in curiosity and emotion, often exploring themes of dreaming, reflection, and discovery. Her style reflects a thoughtful connection with both herself and the wider world, weaving these motifs through her ceramics and illustrative work alike.
Currently residing in Whanganui, Mel embraces the opportunity at Driving Creek to dedicate focused time to her creative process away from her full-time commitments. Over her three-week residency, she plans to bring bisqued wares to paint onsite, allowing the themes of her work to develop naturally in response to the environment. Additionally, she intends to throw new forms from clay provided at the residency, which she will bisque and take home to continue refining. Through this immersive experience, Mel hopes to deepen her artistic exploration and connection with the world around her.
Alana Wilson AUSCountry: Australia Artist Discipline: Pottery/ Ceramics Instagram: @alanawilsonstudio Website: alanawilson.com |
Alana Wilson is a multidisciplinary artist whose primary focus is ceramics, enriched by her experience in sculpture, photography, and printmaking. Her work is deeply informed by her New Zealand upbringing, which inspires an ongoing exploration of the intricate relationship between humans and their environments. Wilson’s ceramics practice investigates themes of transformation, fragility, and duration, using clay as a medium to capture the effects of time, heat, and natural forces. Her work frequently involves firing at high temperatures, embracing glaze technology and a variety of firing atmospheres to create surface metamorphoses that evoke motion and decay. The vessel form is central to her work, though she often displaces its functional role to invite reflection on interconnectedness across geological, environmental, and human scales, with visible marks of labour and imperfection grounding the pieces in time and biography.
During her five-week residency at Driving Creek, Alana aims to engage in focused experimentation with natural and locally sourced materials, exploring clay bodies, glaze compositions, and firing methods including wood, gas, and raku. This residency offers her a rare opportunity to access firing techniques not readily available in her own studio, alongside the collaborative environment that fosters dialogue and shared learning with other artists. Strengthening connections with New Zealand’s ceramic community is particularly meaningful to her, as she plans to establish a studio in Wellington in 2026. This residency represents a pivotal moment for deep material research and artistic growth, supporting both her immediate creative goals and her long-term commitment to contributing to New Zealand’s vibrant ceramics scene.
Wyatt Stebbins USCountry: United States Artist Discipline: Pottery/ Ceramics Instagram: @wyatt.stebbins |
Wyatt Stebbins is a potter from North Carolina, USA, whose work is deeply rooted in tradition and the natural world. He primarily works with wheel-thrown stoneware and handbuilt sculptures, focusing on materials local to his environment, such as red clay and wood ash from his backyard. Wyatt draws inspiration from Japanese ceramic philosophy and North Carolina pottery traditions, blending these influences to create original pieces that highlight the inherent qualities of clay and woodfiring techniques. His use of simple ash glazes, slips, and feldspar glazes made from locally sourced materials, alongside his interest in woodfiring effects like flashing, heavy ash deposits, and orange peel textures, reflects a thoughtful engagement with both materiality and process.
At 18 years old, Wyatt's artistic journey began at an early age with formal training at his high school and the Sawtooth School for Visual Art, culminating in an apprenticeship with fifth-generation potter Chad Brown. His passion for woodfiring and community-based pottery is central to his practice, and at Driving Creek, he aims to deepen his understanding of woodfiring while learning about New Zealand's studio pottery traditions. Wyatt is motivated by the opportunity to connect with an international pottery community, share knowledge, and create meaningful work that resonates with both local materials and global practices. His residency will be an important step in expanding his creative horizons and fostering connections with like-minded artists in New Zealand.