Bee Doughty-Pratt, an emerging artist, is based at her home studio on the banks of the Otaki River about an hour north of Wellington city. Bee's successful oil painting endeavours many years ago were swept aside for decades as family and technology industry business interests took centre stage.

For a lengthy period Bee's creativity found an outlet in interior design and landscape design. She has now returned full-time to the drawing-board (and easel) with an extravagant enthusiasm which is producing some stunning results.

Bee's preference is to work intuitively with layered oils and inks on textured canvas and board or sometimes on coarsely woven hessian board - all of which assist her create depth and interest in her contemporary abstract paintings.

"Every day is an experiment, every day there is some new technique to try, some new concept to paint - or sometimes one of yesterday's efforts to paint over. Every day painting is a pleasure. I love preparing my own canvases and I even like cleaning my brushes!"

Largely self-taught, Bee has recently spent constructive workshop time with two internationally renown, award-winning artists - Jane Kellehan and Susan Knaap. She also admires and draws inspiration from the work of several other New Zealand artists including Megan Schmidt, Paul Vincent and Gail Gauldie.

Bee's artworks employ deeply vibrant colours many of which are drawn from an earthy palette. Although most of her works have an emotional nub and a ‘deep and meaningful' message :) - which draws in the viewer, some whimsical pieces are just simply entertaining talking points.

Bee's work is displayed for sale both on-line at www.doughtyart.co.nz and in a number of galleries throughout the North Island of New Zealand.