This years chosen charity is The Canterbury Charity Hospital

Eion Stevens was born in Dunedin in 1952 and graduated with honours from the Otago School of Art in 1973. He attended Exeter College of Art in England in 1974 and 1975.

He lived in Port Chalmers for several years and then in Lyttelton, before moving to central Christchurch after the 2011 earthquakes.

Eion Stevens paintings have maintained a relationship of sorts with literature for many years, but it would be wrong to assume that they reveal familiar, narratives and storylines. Rather, literary sources offer a necessary anchor for images that touch upon memories or fleeting glimpses and revelations about human behaviour in paintings that acknowledge their respect and affection for Modernism and the work of artists like Picasso and Derain. Stevens graduated from the Otago School of Art and attended Exeter College of Art, London 1974 – 75. He has work in public and corporate collections, including the Christchurch Art Gallery.