Frith Wilkinson — Painter

The work is built on a symbolic, personal language where recurring motifs function as a narrative key for the viewer. Orchids, portals, the night sky and bodies of water are used as symbols to construct meaning. This language merges the external with the internal.

Through deliberate repetition and interrelation, I address connection to place: a deep love for the interconnected whole (Soliphilia), and a meditation on ecological grief caused by environmental destruction and climate change (Solastalgia).

This theme is most recently explored in my study of New Zealand orchids, which serve as a microcosm for broader themes of decay, resilience and renewal.

“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow, and I am in them and that is eternity”
— Edvard Munch

I trained at Canterbury School of Fine Arts in the early 1990s, majoring in photography, and have exhibited widely in dealer galleries throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.

I live and work at Parapara, Golden Bay, along with my husband, jeweller Martyn Milligan. The studio and gallery is open in summer and by appointment at other times.