The Artist.

JOE BOON is a self-taught artist from Palmerston North who decided to pick up a paintbrush in 2008 after being diagnosed with Friedreich's Ataxia. His creative skills have continued to develop even as his mobility and coordination have decreased. Now, art is his main focus, and he exhibits regularly at Square Edge Community Arts.

"There is no such thing as a mistake, really. It's just an opportunity to do something else."

Ralph Steadman

His work is heavily influenced by surrealism and expressionism, though he is not limited to any particular genre or approach. He uses a diverse range of mediums, including oil-paint, acrylic gouache, watercolour, ink, charcoal, and graphite.

Working across these different formats allows him to move faster and be highly experimental. While these experiments sometimes work out as expected, most of the time they do not. For Joe, that is exactly when the magic of discovery happens. As he notes, embracing mistakes is simply an opportunity to do something else.