Preview: The Art Issue 2014

Our annual Art Issue is always one of our favourites, and we're especially delighted with the way this year's extravaganza has worked out. There are plenty of highlights, including New Zealand jewellery designer Jessica McCormack's remarkable London townhouse, which features in the the beautiful shot by James MacDonald that stars on our cover.

There's much more to see inside. HOME editor Jeremy Hansen visited Jessica in London last June, and details her stellar career - her jewellery designs have been worn by Rihanna and Madonna, and she has a list of well-heeled clients from all over the world. She's also a dab hand at creating an art-filled interior, as you'll see in our pages.

Another rising star in this issue is New Zealand artist Simon Denny, who won the prestigious Baloise Art Prize at Art Basel in 2012, and has been selected as New Zealand's representative at the Venice Art Biennale in 2015. Photographer Steffen Jagenburg visited Simon (below) at his home and studio in Berlin, and took some marvellous shots. 

And there's more New Zealand artistic talent that we've tracked down offshore: our Art Issue features Fiona Connor at home in Los Angeles, a former shop in the Echo Park neighbourhood that she also uses as a studio for her sculptures (one of which is the outdoor lounge chair in this photo by Emily Andrews below). Fiona has a fascinating art practice that we're really delighted to tell you more about in this issue. 

Many of you will know 'Wind Tree', the fantastic sculpture in Auckland's Silo Park (if you don't, here it is, photographed by Simon Devitt).

'Wind Tree' was not created specifically for Silo Park, but for another Auckland site in the 1970s. It spent about a decade in storage after being removed from QEII Square to make way for the Britomart redevelopment. We tracked down Michio Ihara, the remarkable artist who created it, at his home near Boston. Gemma Gracewood has written a touching story for this issue about Ihara-san's illustrious artistic career, and Emily Andrews took beautiful photographs like this one below of his home and studio. 

Another highlight from this issue is the New York home of Bill Shumaker (below), a one-time New Zealander whose Brooklyn brownstone is bursting at the seams with his idiosyncratic art collection. Emily Andrews also took the photos, and writer Sam Eichblatt's story in our Art Issue details Bill's fascinating life story. 

There's much more in the issue of course. It's on newsstands from Monday February 3.