"Water"
A brief summary of Dawn's career,

When I moved to South Canterbury, in the South Island of New Zealand in 2003, the project aqua debate (a Hydro scheme) was at full height. I drove inland for the first time up the Waitaki valley stopping at the Kurow Bridge. Here I saw for the first time the water over which everyone was fighting. The clarity, colour, and quantity of water are obviously worth getting passionate about. I thought if Aqua went ahead, I should record the river's water portraying it as the treasure it is. I was not essentially anti Aqua, though, I did not like aspects of it.

I began to paint water.

I am using the symbolism of the early abacuses, man's oldest calculator. I have painted my way to this piece of original symbolism. I include rock piles in reference to the original pebbles in the sand of the early abacus.

We calculate the value of water individually and as businesses - farmers, councils and governments. People are increasingly looking at the water and making calculations

Before I painted water, my focus was the NZ rainforest and its preservation, something I grew up with in Northland and embraced during the 5 years I spent on the West Coast before moving to Canterbury. Sadly, it is too late for this conservation here in Canterbury.

My near kayak shaped canvases refer to the vessel of choice when getting in touch with water on a one to one basis. A modern vessel of discovery, it is a kayaks view or that of a glass bottom boat. It is a pleasing original shape.

Water is becoming a huge issue everywhere. Clean drinking water costs third world people about 50 times as much as it costs us. As a result, they do not drink clean water and children die, at a rate of about one every 8 seconds through preventable water related illnesses and pollution. Pollution, soaring costs and climate change are making people calculate its value in a new light.

The aesthetic value of water to me is hard to calculate. I aim for images of great serenity, both meditative and pleasing to live with.

Dawn Mann