Toby Raine is an Auckland-based artist who received a Doctor of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland in 2016. He has a distinctive approach to painting, moving large quantities of oil paint across the surface of a canvas with confident strokes. Taking an image or a photograph as a starting point, Raine’s work ends up in a terrain between representation and abstraction.

"There’s no set goal except to make a painting work. I start with an image, and then I work into that... It comes out of a ritual, or a rule. The paint builds up and I work back into it or I wipe it off. There’s a grapple between control and spontaneity. I typically waste a lot of paint, though hopefully I reach a moment where I’ll say, ‘yeah that’s interesting, that surprises me’. I’m not satisfied if I’m not surprised."