Your name
Lara Gilks
Place of birth
Dunedin, New Zealand
Place where you live now
Wellington, New Zealand
3 words to describe you
observant, considered, nature lover
Why do you take pictures?
I started taking pictures over 20 years ago, it has always been a way for me to observe the world and a form of expression. Photography allows me to slow down, to look and think critically, to process and reconcile thoughts and internal dialogue.
Where do you get your inspiration?
Nature, everyday observations, thoughts, feelings and other creatives.
Who are your influences?
I am drawn to artists that make me feel something, imagery with tenderness, vulnerability, light in the darkness. For example I love the works of Morganna Magee, Jennifer Georgescu, Lisa Murray, Heather Evans Smith, Sara Silks, Dawn Surratt and Kate Miller Wilson to name but a few.
What determines the subject matter you choose?
Often I start with subject matter immediately available to me, trusting my curiosity and the process. I weave this in to what I am thinking, processing and exploring at a point in time. I often use the human form, nature, water and light in combinations.
What impact would you like your art to have?
I would like my art to create in the viewer a moment of stillness, tenderness, curiosity and for the viewer to ponder the questions that lie beyond the beauty.
What artwork do you never get bored with?
The oil on canvas titled Anguish by August Friedrich Schenck.
Is there anything you want to add?
Thank you

To Dust
Project statement

These works explore the concept that we are connected to the environment and eventually we pass back to her. I am fascinated by the passage from one state to the next and the works seek to capture that transition and explore the sense that we fuse back into nature rather than disappear from it. I believe we leave imprints or reflections behind rather than disappear completely.

If one stops and gazes for long enough, you see those imprints of the slow folding back into nature. The works reveal the remnants of human form in nature's form, along with the peace, calm, solace and beauty of being returned and reconnected. There are glimpses of that transition process.

You drift back to nature - to sky, to cloud, to water, to earth, to fire
It is a slow, peaceful, eerie passage
You do not leave this earth, but return to it – dust to dust
I see your imprint.

lara gilks
@laragilks