Alex Stone
Paintings
Poetry
Sculpture
Weathervanes
Writing

Surprising stuff all round

About Alex Stone
Alex Stone is an artist, inventor, poet, sailor and writer, based on Te Motu Ara-i-Roa, Waiheke Island, 12 nautical miles into the morning sun from Auckland in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

For his creative writing, he has won, been runner-up or  shortlisted in 11 New Zealand literary awards, and short-listed for the international Plaza Prize for Memoir.
Experience the Fusion of Art Forms
From Concept to Canvas, from Notion to Sculpture

BOOK REVIEWS - Umkhapalanga

Umkhapalanga - the Song of a Son

     

 There are works which inform. There are works which entertain. There are works which inspire. Umkhapalanga is all of these. And much, much more.. 

Dr Steven Roger Fischer
FRS (NZ) author of The History of Reading, Islands, The History of Writing, Glyphbreaker, The Island at the End of the World
     

 I am awe-struck by this book – it is brilliant – philosophical, whimsical, heartfelt and humorous. Everything good writing should be! 

Alison Kirkman
Perth, Western Australia
     

 Enjoying reading Umkhapalanga. Together with your Dad, you traverse a wide canvas … relationships, personal experiences, family history, science, philosophy … I love it. Umkhapalanga spans so many topics; Chaos, Space time, Seeing the light. Paisley patterns and logarithmic spirals … and what about Nowp? I imagine a perfect setting for slow contemplative (Ja, Nee) discussion on these topics would be around a fire in the lowveld bush on a dark night with Orion or Scorpio overhead. Maybe even sharing a zol. 

John Lightfoot
Johannesburg
     

 Alex, you have a beautiful way with words and I love that you play with them so. 

Jane Hudson
Author of In the Name of the Mother

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BOOK REVIEWS - jesus of the credit cards

jesus of the credit cards - short stories

     

 A writer of striking originality with qualities of daring and humour that are rare. Like Lloyd Jones, Alex has the ability to create a landscape so vivid the reader feels he is walking down a dusty road or in the hold of a ship. 

Elizabeth Smither
Novelist and Poet Laureate of New Zealand
     

 There is energy and confidence on every page. The way you inhabit your lines is remarkable. 

- Lloyd Jones
Author of Mr Pip and Winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Award
     

 Stone has that essential and sometimes under-respected quality of writing stories that engage you till the end. He likes his people and enjoys his eccentrics… 

David Hill
Weekend Herald
     

 Stone has that essential and sometimes under-respected quality of writing stories that engage you till the end. He likes his people and enjoys his eccentrics… 

David Hill
Weekend Herald - Copy

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BOOK REVIEWS - Taken

Taken - the novel

     

 I’ve read and re-read the story, and I think this: It is intriguing, beautifully-crafted, moving and poetic, in form at least seeming an extension of your poem 'History of Anchors'. It brings the knowing eye of elephants to bear on the reader, creating the feeling of injustice I always have when I'm close to them. It’s a parable of imperialism. For all these reasons and more, I loved it. Alex’s perspective is unusual. This gives his stories their outstanding quality: they are original. I have not read stories like this before. If one of the objects of good writing is to move the reader to a different place, then he succeeds very well 

Bruce Ansley
one of New Zealand's pre-eminent storytellers, and author of A long Slow Affair of the Heart, A Fabled Land, and Coast: A New Zealand Journey, winner Best Illustrated Non-fiction Book at the New Zealand Post Book Awards
     

 Sometimes his rendering can be so singular, so startling, that you'll hear yourself exclaiming aloud. 

David Hill
Kete Books
     

 Meet Hannibal Solo, Biligiri, Tant-Meisie and Pulmulla, the majestic stars of four narrative threads which knock us over and pull us into a world of magic realism. It is an absolute blast – a triumph of writing of the imagination, skilfully mashing together magisteria – of orders of life, time, ecology, colonialism and the damage it does – without losing the reader or taking the easy route. Most remarkably of all, the voices are those of elephants, and Taken’s greatest feat is to let you in on their secrets so utterly, you begin to feel like one. Superb! 

Jenny Nicholls
Weekender

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BOOK REVIEWS - Dreams & Dust

Dreams & Dust: Short-lived republics of South Africa, past, present and imagined - Non-fiction (history)

     

 I can’t think of anything remotely comparable to this in South African historico-literary works – in subject conception and in its approach to subject matter, it really is a unique volume, fresh and strikingly idiosyncratic in its handling of subject matter. [Alex] Stone is a highly accomplished writer, with a prose fluency, an eye for freakish detail and an ability to compress things which mark him out as a gifted stylist. His ‘Dreams and Dust’ introduction is the best hook I’ve experienced in a long time – it tells you what to expect, makes what that is look tantalising, and reels you in. This is imaginative historical writing with a light and lively touch, while not dodging topics that are emotive and powerful. The text does a smart job of weaving its ‘snap-shot’ stories into the fabric of South Africa’s older and more contemporary past. This is a strikingly original work, written with panache. It makes an entertaining and informative book. 

Bill Nasson
Emeritus Professor in History, Stellenbosch University and Fellow, Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study, Emeritus Professor and Fellow, University of Cape Town.
     

 DIFFERENCE [is what] you are certainly offering. Who the hell ever dreamed of a book on 56 unheard-of countries and 20 imaginary ones? Dreams & Dust at least has to be in every bookshop from this time next year, for a second printing before Christmas. 

Denis Beckett
Author of Flying with Pride: The Story of the South African Flag, Madibaland, Trekking: In Search of the Real South Africa, and The Fallacy of Heroes.
     

 It is finely wrought, impressively researched, and solidly written. 

David Robbins
Author of After the Dance.

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PAINTINGS

DRAWINGS

WEATHERVANES

SCULPTURES & INSTALLATIONS

CONCEPTUAL/TEXT-BASED WORKS

Imagine the news-stand posters for a newspaper called 'The Daily Poet...'

 
 
 
 

An installation of absurdist vernacular. 'The Man’s Choice' posters are the two-dimensional component of a series of works in response to the flurry of excitement around the hosting of the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand; and the attendant mythology of manhood and mayhem that surrounds it.In the same way the play 'Foreskin’s Lament' allowed for a painfully pointed re-assessment of Kiwi rugby culture in the 1980s, so these works have a softly-satiric edge beyond their easy familiarity. They also look at the inversion of ‘the iconic’ in New Zealand popular culture. And of the myths we so fondly perpetuate. Of course the point here is that all self-made myths could/should be subjected to similar incisive viewing. It’s what art is there to do.The Man’s Choice posters installation is the two-dimensional component of other sculptural works, which take the form of oversize (twice life-size) scrum machines. These works point to our national heritage of imposing giant status on our sports heroes, and of elevating them to superhuman expectations. We all know where this can lead to, so the works are also about human frailty. And of the value of keeping a sense of humour (or humility) intact.

 
 
 
 
 
 

A collection of old-fashioned touristy postcards, with names misplaced. An essay on the uneasy patina of names on a colonised land...

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

SHORT STORIES

Who is certain of tomorrow?

The exile of the last Queen of Madagascar, 1897

NOTES

Sidewalk music, sublime and otherwise

Ghosts

On a night near Knysna, a circus elephant recalls

POEMS

News

When I heard the news I went and stood in a triangle of horses They shuffled, and snuffled, sneezed, then quieted and I was washed with their thick horsey smell. Looking out across their backs, I saw the ducklings too. They have escaped the hawks - for now. The munty horse got out of the paddock, but he’ll be back, I know. When I heard the news I just went and stood in a triangle of horses. Thinking you can’t come back from this. They showed to me there is no sentimentality in this world. I had peppermints. * News was selected for Ōrongohau │ 25 Best New Zealand Poems 2025, edited by NZ Poet Laureat Cilla McQueen and published by Te Herenga Waka │ Victoria University of Wellington’s International Institute of Modern Letters.

Supermarket run; matuku moana, the traffic and me

The secret life of a city Today I communed with a matuku moana a white-faced heron By an outfall, where no-one saw us And she was grateful I suppose For the mudbank of fetid black sludge is still home for many mudcrabs among the mānawa mangroves tidal creek Traffic hums-rushes-growls It's above head-height for us hums-rushes-growls Incessantly It's got its own absurd urgency The matuku moana and I – not We share a quiet moment Or two Then I tie up the dinghy Scramble up the bank (inelegantly) Cut my foot on an old oyster shell Supermarket trolleys in the salt swamp – dumped there – as witnesses, of a civilisation long lost, that lived for but a brief flicker of time Not white-faced heron time And I find meself at the arse-end parking-at-rear of Repco ('What an auto store oughta be') And just fifty yards across the road from the Countdown and its aisles of everything (Thanks Google maps) I'm sure they'll take me muddy After I've washed feet in a puddle It's the colour of my money that concerns them, anyway I lurch off to the supermarket (a man's gotta eat) While she, the heron, Mud crabs full Takes off, floats above the bank Light as an afterthought Goodbye to me Just a few wing beats Elegantly. * Short-listed for the Monica Taylor Poetry Prize, Takahe literary Journal, New Zealand 2025.

RD Somewhere

Come live with me and be my love upon my old inherited farm. And I will offer TV and bleary eyes and rugby in the wee small hours while mist and moon and owls align outside. I’ll know what nights we might see full moon rainbows in faintly tinted shades of silver. Come live with me and be my love upon this fecund patch of soil And there will be dawns of cold blue light days of mud and evenings softly sliced with shafts of golden green between corded, crumpled hills. and sometimes, heavy dew Come live with me and be my love in the house that I will build for you and there will be rust and junk and old machines and sky and rain and kids and love. * Runner-up in the NZ nationwide Kohukohu Library Poetry Prize 2020.

Swerve. Boot.

We live in a land islands, actually where a gumboot can be found alone in the middle of the road upright (dropped off a ute and the weight of wet clay landed it just so) And people will swerve to miss it out of respect. So it stands there Upright Antipodean Ozymandian while road cones (the uppity imposters, those orange white-banded bastards shiny-skitey as) are gleefully knocked-over The gumboot Red Band, good brand staunch as yo Nek morning it’s gone bloke and boot re-united All’s well, aye.

ART WRITING

A pairing of painters

Karamea, 1929. A glorious summer in the far NW of the South Island. Paris, and a sparkling Jour d’Eté (Summer’s Day) on Lac Inférieur in the great park Bois de Boulogne.

Felix Keely - the art of the OE

Of an artist who is a little out on a limb in our nation’s creative family tree.

Falling off the radar - the art of Bas Jan Ader

There are plenty of stories of hopeful artists who have not yet made it, doing what they have to do.

Contact

  • Waiheke Island, New Zealand