Oscar Wrap - Kayla Keyes

Kayla is an artist and marine biologist who has lived in the beautiful Bay of Islands for over four years, originally born in the US. She has always had a deep love for the moana and has spent most of her life working to protect and understand our amazing underwater world. She is a mother-taught artist, as her mother attended art school and would always teach her what she was learning. At the time, art was a challenging career to survive in, so her mother encouraged her to pursue her other passion—marine science. After earning two degrees, traveling extensively, and building a career in marine conservation, she found her home in Aotearoa.

In recent years, she has decided to bring her two passions together by co-founding the Ocean Mind Project, a community-based initiative that works to educate and inspire local communities about ocean conservation and regeneration through creativity and sustainability. She believes that art has the power to heal and that it is time to get creative in finding solutions to the world's problems.