I was born 1962 in Otaki, New Zealand. My Maori ancestory is Ngati Toa, Ngati Raukawa, Te Ati Awa.

My parents named me Rongopamamao after my great Grandmother and her Mother before her. I am also known as Jody Ricci for those who find that easier to pronounce!

Otaki is a small beach side town.  Market gardens surrounded our house on two sides and a dairy farm on the other with a railway station in front that had stock yards for loading cattle onto the trains. It was an adventure play ground for me.

Creative pursuits started around the age of five. I made little sand gardens in tea cup saucers and redesigned my bedroom into a new theme every chance I got. Drawing came along later between ten and twelve. At high school I drew in the columns of my text books and sat around on the steps sketching fashion models with my friends. It was not until my eighteenth birthday that I got my first paint set. Being clueless where to start I dabbled away in my spare time and started meeting artists who made their living from art. With each new friend I learnt different ways of seeing creatively. Those early ties forged and strengthened my interest in art and creativity.

In my twenties I entered a window dressing competition for Rheem Industries and won most creative design. In another competition for Media Advertising with Alex Harvey Industries held throughout Australia and New Zealand I entered and won. I never pursued earning a living from it. I felt being pressured to make art was not my art so instead I found jobs that allowed me to be creative like window dressing, shop merchandising, screen printing, and eventually computer graphics by the age of thirty five. I continued to paint when I could and explored sculpture, pottery, decoupage, macramé, marbling, fabric painting, upholstery and bone carving.

At forty my husbands work took us to Switzerland for four years and it was then that I decided to pursue my interest in painting more seriously. I visited France, Spain, Italy and Germany and was inspired by the art wonders these places shared with me. Seeing the old Italian masters, the impressionists, cubists and surrealists were awe inspiring. It spun me into what I can only describe as an art frenzy!

Since then I have been exploring my Maori heritage within my work as I grow the knowledge needed to apply paint, colour and composition to my ideas. I also enjoy figurative themes which take me back to the fashion models I sketched in my schoolbooks! 

These days I live half the year painting in Surfers Paradise, Australia and the other half of the year at art classes in Montreal, Canada.