I am a water-based inks & pigments artist.

I currently specialise in expressive abstract painting, depicting elements and forms arising out of volcanism from the Central Plateau, New Zealand.

Volcanism not only destroys, it creates.

David Jarvis Curno has a list of artistic achievements driven by early exposure to works by some of New Zealand’s finest Maori artists. The influences that he gained from this group of artists helped inform works that won him his first professional painting award, 2001. The following year his digital art was awarded twice, for ‘best use of colour’ at the National Newspaper Advertising Awards. He has gone on to have multiple solo and group shows in Dunedin, Christchurch and Auckland.

After gaining a diploma in digital art from NATCOL, Christchurch, he enrolled at Auckland University’s School of Fine Art, Elam. This move allowed him the freedom to explore new ideas that encouraged him to switch from oils to a contemporary use of water colour.

The switch in styles was acknowledged when Curno was selected to represent Elam Art School, at Auckland’s Eden Arts, Schools Awards. The last eighteen months of his degree, was spent living at Rannoch House, the home of New Zealand private art collector and philanthropist, Sir James Wallace. He was a finalist in the Wallace Art Awards, three out of the five years he entered and the Wallace Arts Trust have acquired ten of his works for their permanent collection. In 2012 he accepted an invitation to exhibit at the Pah Homestead, showcasing a selection of his best pieces from the Elam years.

Later that same year he was a finalist in the Gallipoli Club Art Awards, Sydney. Curno has works in private collections in Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand.

He now resides at Whakamoenga Point, Taupo, where his latest water pigment works have been informed by the formation of the central plateau. His perspective of this brutally sculpted land is subtly represented in these new and fresh works. Adding splashes of volcanic action to these abstract ideas of form, has created interesting and sometimes challenging art. Each work has taken inspiration from the area’s volatile history and resulting contrasting land.

Volcanism not only destroys, it creates. This is Curno’s understanding. An understanding that includes, everything has rules but within those rules, there’s unpredictable and random behaviour.