Blom & Anchor Me

by Jaylee Blom Vorster & Anna Potton

Date: Jul 17 – Jul 30Space: Small Gallery

A dual art exhibition by Anna Potton and Jaylee Blom Vorster

 

Opening Night: Friday 17th July 2026 – 5-7pm 

 

Blom

 

Blom, the Afrikaans word for “flower” or “bloom,” sits at the heart of 14-year-old Jaylee Blom Vorster’s work. Her paintings explore the idea of blooming not only through flowers themselves, but through the changing landscapes and natural elements she is drawn to — glowing sunsets, awakening sunrises, flowing water, and imagined floral forms.

Using vibrant colour and expressive movement, Jaylee’s work reflects a season of personal growth and transformation. The sunsets and sunrises become symbols of becoming — moments suspended between endings and beginnings — while water represents reflection, movement, and emotional change. Inspired by the endless variety found in nature, she creates her own evolving floral forms as visual representations of identity, imagination, and the experience of growing into young womanhood.

Together, the works capture a sense of energy, renewal, and unfolding; a young artist blooming into herself through paint.

 

Artist Profile: Jaylee Blom Vorster

Jaylee Blom Vorster is a young emerging artist originally from Centurion, South Africa, who began developing her artistic practice in 2025. Working primarily in acrylic painting and drawing, her practice explores expressive landscapes, water, sunsets, and sunrises through vibrant colour palettes and energetic, dynamic brushwork.

Inspired by the beauty and symbolism of flowers, Jaylee creates her own imagined floral varieties as a way of exploring identity, growth, and the person she is evolving into as a young woman. Her work is intuitive and emotionally driven, often balancing movement, colour, and nature to create compositions that feel both personal and alive.

Jaylee’s artistic painting journey began when her ouma came to visit from South Africa and they spent time together painting. She is now exhibiting for the first time alongside her bonus mother, artist Anna Potton.

 

Anchor Me

 

Anchor Me explores emotional regulation through sensory experience, intimacy, and acts of care. Through abstract figurative painting, Anna Potton reflects on the small moments that help ground us during difficulty — sunlight on skin, the scent of flowers, a cup of coffee, music, and the stability, reassurance, and emotional safety found in enduring love and close human connection.

The works investigate the body’s search for safety and softness in the midst of emotional overwhelm. Moving between vulnerability and strength, the paintings act as visual “anchors”; reminders of the people, sensations, and rituals that return us to ourselves.

Combining expressive brushwork, rich colour, and feminine symbolism, Potton creates emotionally suspended spaces that explore love, attachment, memory, and the quiet ways humans seek comfort, grounding, and belonging. Rather than presenting healing as linear, Anchor Me honours tenderness, connection, and beauty as vital acts of emotional survival and hope.

 

Artist Profile: Anna Potton

Anna Potton is a Hawke’s Bay artist who enjoys working with unconventional materials to explore themes of memory, transformation, and emotion. She teaches Art and Technology at Iona College and has twice exhibited garments in the World of Wearable Art.

Her practice is highly experimental, combining a range of wet and dry media and exploring new ways of constructing and reconstructing surfaces. Anna is particularly drawn to painting abstract figures and organic forms inspired by nature, creating symbolic compositions that reflect movement, growth, and the evolving experiences that shape who we become.

This exhibition also marks the first time Anna has exhibited alongside her bonus daughter, emerging artist Jaylee Blom Vorster, whose vibrant and expressive works explore themes of identity, growth, and blooming through nature-inspired imagery.