Stephen describes the context for his composition:

'Moereki Boulders.
A strange group of spherical pods strewn over a beautiful beach. Maori legend has them as food baskets, washed ashore from a waka (canoe), but in actual fact they are spheres of stone originally compressed by the weight of the cliff, which then became exposed on the beach as the cliff eroded.  "Moereki - Stone on canvas" was composed using the orange stone, which had come from the insides of these ancient boulders broken by the sea millennia ago.'