My Story

ARTISTS BIO – TRACEY POLGLAZE B, 1970

 

Growing up in New Zealand's South Island mountains, Tracey developed a keen interest in native flora and fauna. This, along with a love of adventure and the great outdoors, significantly influences her art practice. As a young child she was bewitched by horses, and obsessed with riding and drawing them. At age 10, she accidentally drew Leonardo da Vinci, which sparked a fascination with capturing the likeness of the human face.  A love of portraiture has subsequently spurred her imagination for 40+ years.  

 

In 2015 she began seriously focussing on portraits. 350 or so commissioned artworks later, the opportunity to closely study anatomy (through both art and a nursing career) has been priceless.

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After several years of travel, and living and working overseas, in 2005 she returned home to Nelson to care for her mother who had terminal cancer. At this time, she was struck with an immediacy to follow her dreams, so enrolled in a Bachelor of Visual Art and Design, graduating in 2007.

 

In 2005 she received a grant from Creative Communities New Zealand, which contributed towards her first solo exhibition - tactile artworks for the visually impaired, held in Nelson. 100% of proceeds were donated to the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind. In 2007, whilst nursing at Christchurch Maternity Hospital, a series of her illustrations for a breastfeeding booklet was published by the hospital. Her artworks are held in public and private collections in New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, Finland, Alaska and Australia.

 

For the past 25 years she has maintained a career as a registered nurse, whilst art making. The humans she meets through nursing are a significant inspiration. In 2021 her portrait of Dr Marcus Ilton won the people’s choice award at the Royal Darwin Hospital Staff Art Exhibition, and was a finalist in the Portrait of a Senior Territorian Art Award, Darwin, NT, in which she has exhibited four times.

 

She's attracted to multimedia abstract realism, considering design principles and colour harmony. Her process plays with transparent layers, revealing various elements beneath subjects, which are drawn in the foreground with varying visibility. Her aim is to portray the feeling of a place rather than a direct visual representation. Her latest works have a dreamlike quality that invite the viewer to experience a sense of connection whilst  imagining their own narrative.