Life Saver by Sharon Paris

Sharon Paris; New Zealander, minimalist, borderline OCD, non-bicycle-rider, conflict-avoider, compulsive worrier, conceptual artist, owner of particularly long arms and legs (although on whole only exactly average in height) and designer/creator of parishouse.co.nz. Paris House makes you smile. They believe in the simplicity of style and strive to create products that take New Zealand's creative thinking to the rest of the world. Held by Victor Borge's definition of humour:"the shortest distance between two people." Paris completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Elam, Auckland University, New Zealand graduating in 2001 and started working on Paris House soon after.

As a conceptual artist, she is inspired by Gavin Turk (UK), who entertains the press by showing up to interviews disguised as people other than himself, and Jenny Holzer(USA), who likes to place truisms like "Dying and coming back gives you a considerable perspecitve" on electronic billboards in Times Square.

"I come from a family that laughs a lot and when I was at Elam I studied a lot of artists, but the ones that I liked had one common thread, that was that they made me smile," Paris says. "As an artist it is essential for my work to have a deeper meaning, it is not essential that anybody else knows it, but it's important to me because that is what defines me as an artist."