Meet The Artist

Hi, I’m Marlene Shores. I live in Tauranga in the sunny Bay of Plenty, New Zealand

I fell in love with gourds (also known as calabash) whilst on vacation in Japan in 2009 where I met an artist in the mountains. His carved gourd lamps were beautiful.

As I researched gourds I uncovered their long history. Dried gourds have been used by cultures around the whole world for thousands of years from Egypt, Europe, India and the Americas to name a few, with an endless variety of uses such as water canteens, wine and oils vessels, food bowls, storage and gorgeous musical instruments. They are quite often seen in films, and songs have been written about them.

In 2010 I managed to find and buy three gourds from a grower in Kawhia but they sat on my shelf untouched until 2019 when I started experimenting with colour, paints, dyes and carving techniques.

I struggled to find more gourds to use so I began growing my own. Now, most of my art has started from seed.

As my interest turned into passion, I practiced with patterns, carving, beads and painting. Whilst finding my feet with many different art styles, in 2020 I took pen to and paper and patterns flowed, I couldn’t stop. My first pictures were purely practice to decorate my gourds. But as more people saw them their imaginations ran wild.

I was amazed at the different things that people saw within the same picture. I also created simple images with secrets hidden within and have found some people prefer an image that they could relate to. I love including spider webs in my art; to me they symbolize the idea of creation and capture of the imagination.

What began as a practice soon became an art form in itself. I decided to call my designs Inzentation (in Zen you imagine).  Gourds and Inzentation both as separate art forms, but also blended together, making the perfect combination of two art forms. 

I decided to share my love of gourds and Inzentation with the world.

I created Frith Arts using my middle name and when my rental property in Papamoa became vacant, I took the opportunity to create my own gallery.