Pop Artist Billy Apple Defied Parochialism
In an article for New York-based magazine Artforum, contributing editor Thomas Crow looks back on the life of New Zealand artist Billy Apple, who died aged 85 in 2021. “Though he was much else besides,…
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Riyadh Sculpture Prize for Artist Anna Korver
Taranaki sculptor Anna Korver has been awarded first place at the 2021 edition of Tuwaiq Sculpture for her work entitled, ‘The Lighthouses triptych’. “Her masterful work fuses abstract geometrical forms with multiple cultural associations, suggesting…
Angela Tiatia Shows at Massive Matisse Exhibition
In the accompanying exhibition to the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ new blockbuster exhibition Matisse: Life & Spirit, contemporary artists, including New Zealander Angela Tiatia, re-contextualise, challenge and complicate the modern master’s art…
Marie Mansfield Wins Australian Portrait Award
Ten-time finalist New Zealand-born artist Marie Mansfield has won Australia’s premier prize for female portraitists, the $30,000 Portia Geach Memorial Award, Helen Pitt reports for The Sydney Morning Herald. Mansfield won for Tilly, a painting…
Photographer Nicola Dove Shoots Iconic Bond Pic
Film stills photographer Nicola Dove, who hails from Nelson, has spent 20 years taking photos on sets. She’s photographed the likes of Dame Judi Dench, Liam Neeson, Dame Maggie Smith and Johnny Depp, Caroline…
Billy Apple an Artist Who Was His Own Life’s Work
“Over his long, provocative career, the artist Billy Apple changed his name, registered it as a trademark, branded products with it, had his genome sequenced and, finally, arranged to have his cells…
Rob Tennent’s Ode to Male Friendship and Summer
Summer in New Zealand can be a special kind of magic; the days of long ocean swims, covered in sand and sea salt and fingers dripping with fish and chip grease. It’s a feeling…
Webtoon Creator Rachel Smythe Busy and Paid
When graphic design graduate, Rachel Smythe, 35, tried to get a foot in the door of New Zealand’s creative industry in 2008, she was rejected at every turn. But in 2016, the BBC’s Mary-Ann…
HUM Ups Visibility of New Zealand Artists Abroad
New Zealand doesn’t have a dedicated cultural diplomacy wing like the British Council or the Goethe-Institut. To help amplify New Zealand visual art on the global stage, Pauline Autet established online platform Contemporary HUM….
NY Gallery Exhibits Susan Te Kahurangi King
“A small feast of King’s extraordinary drawings is currently part of an absorbing and knowledgeably assembled group show at the Andrew Edlin Gallery in New York,” Sanford Schwartz writes…
Māori-Influenced Umurangi Generation Compelling
“Umurangi Generation is as much a game of hide-and-seek as of photography: just as much time is spent exploring the warren-like scenes in order to locate the next item in the brief,” The Observer’s…
Artist David Boyce Exhibits in Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s Karin Weber Gallery has announced a joint exhibition by New Zealander David Boyce and China’s Hiu Tung Lau, two artists in dialogue who between them cover a multitude of artistic expressions and…
Photographer Robin Hammond Hands Camera to Refugees
New Zealander Robin Hammond has spent two decades crisscrossing the developing world and telling other people’s stories, Guardian correspondent Lizzy Davies writes. For his latest project the award-winning photographer has embarked on a paradigm…
Artist Euan Macleod Scoops Huge Drawing Prize
Multi award-winning artist Christchurch-born Euan Macleod has won the Australian $30,000 Dobell Drawing Prize with a pastel-on-paper work entitled Borderlands, Nick Galvin reports for The Sydney Morning Herald. Each of the 15 postcard-sized images in…
Designer Josh Nelson Inspired by People-Watching
Josh Nelson doesn’t own a car. Because of this, he regularly takes public transport around his home of Auckland, watching locals interact on bus and rail, Giacomo Lee writes for a story published online…
Portland-Based Artist Vo Vo’s New Show Ignites
After working four months with a tapestry company to create a textile for an upcoming show, New Zealand-born Portland-based artist Vo Vo ran into a problem: The company refused to print the design, Shannon…
LA Gallery Owner Blown Away by Emma McIntyre
Auckland-born artist Emma McIntyre’s first show out of New Zealand, ‘Pour plenty on the worlds’, is now on in Los Angeles at Chris Sharp Gallery, the new establishment’s debut show. Sharp, who co-curated the New…
Artist Simon Denny Reflects on Berlin Art Programme
Co-founder of the Berlin Program for Artists (BPA) New Zealand-born Simon Denny, 39, (pictured right) explains why artists are essential to the fabric of Germany’s capital city in an article for UK art magazine, Frieze. “When…
Rebecca Thomas’ Polish Portraits Stand Out
“More Radical Empathy, a project by New Zealand-born photographer Rebecca Thomas, is a poignant and inspiring series of portraits of activists from the global queer community in London, bearing heartfelt slogans of resistance against…
JK Rowling Picks Sophie Mills’ Ickabog Illustration
Southland Girls’ High School student Sophie Mills, 12, was one of four New Zealanders amongst 32 submissions worldwide to have an illustration included in JK Rowling’s latest book, The Ickabog. About 18,000 entries were…
Max Gimblett Shows Juggernaut in San Francisco
San Francisco’s prestigious Hosfelt Gallery presents a solo exhibition of work by the esteemed 84 year-old painter, calligrapher, and Rinzai Zen monk Max Gimblett. The exhibition, entitled juggernaut, opens September 8, 2020 and…
Te Puna O Waiwhetū Reorients With Te Wheke
“That Aotearoa New Zealand offers a rich vantage point from which to consider the tensions and affordances of displacement is the central claim of the generous, sprawling exhibition ‘Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania’,” Matthew…
Artist John Ward Knox Paints a Prime Minister
Fortune has favoured John Ward Knox. The Auckland-born artist’s dual-layer portrait of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been recently released from Australian customs just in time to be entered into the Archibald Prize, Chloe…
Oscar Hetherington Wins Photo Award for Backwash
Otago-based Oscar Hetherington has won the Grand Prize at the Sony Alpha Awards 2020, Kiro Evans reports for The Scottish Sun. Hetherington was awarded the accolade for his submission ‘Backwash’, which was hailed as…
Artist Peter Boggs Explores the Ins and Outs
“Peter Boggs, the New Zealand-born, Blue Mountains-based artist, has been a regular exhibitor in Canberra for the past 22 years. Boggs champions a form of ‘slow art’, where he relies on the viewer to…
Artist Zac Langdon-Pole Looks to the Stars
Gazing at the stars is something that Berlin-based, Auckland-born artist Zac Landon-Pole has been doing for some time now. He had contemplated celestial mapping through his Passport (Argonauta) creations where meteorites were hand-carved to…
Hugh Stewart’s FaceTime Portraits Shots of Lockdown
Working from a pop-up studio in the garage of his Sydney home, New Zealand-born photographer Hugh Stewart has captured the experience and emotion of life in lockdown using just FaceTime and a strategically placed…
Artist Max Gimblett goes Oxherding with Lewis Hyde
Auckland born New Yorker and pre-eminent New Zealand artist Max Gimblett has produced his most significant book collaboration with American poet, cultural essayist and MacArthur Fellow Lewis Hyde. Published in September 2020 by the…
Photographer Amos Chapple’s Love Letter to Prague
High above street level, scores of magnificent statues gaze down over the historical centre of Prague. These rooftop figures – which normally go virtually unnoticed – are now the focus of a project by…
Capturing Copeisolation on Rakiura/Stewart Island
Originally from Estonia, Laire Purik is documenting the life of the residents of Rakiura “through windows, through the gates” as they cope with the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. The BBC reports on her…
New York-Based Jess Johnson Finds Solace in Art
Some artists embrace chance and whimsy, but New Zealander Jess Johnson’s painstaking focus puts her into a space entirely under her command, John Bailey writes for WA Today. Right now, the contrast to the…
Endangered Kea Image a Shot of the 2000s
Photographers working for UK newspapers The Guardian and The Observer pick their favourite moments from over two decades reporting around the world. A fleeting moment, captured by Murdo MacLeod, in the South Island features. “The…
Tips for Virtual Travel From an Agoraphobic
While the coronavirus crisis has restricted most global travel, a typical day sees New Zealander Jacqui Kenny spend the morning in Arizonian desert, lunch in Kyrgyzstan and the evening wandering streets in Mongolia, Francesca…
Artist Zac Langdon-Pole Travels Time and Space
In 2018, Berlin-based New Zealander Zac Langdon-Pole, 32, won the BMW Art Journey prize at Art Basel Hong Kong, an award he used to fund a trip from Europe to his homeland, via several…
Arts Can Foster Resilience Says Blair French
The crisis and the economic repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic will test New Zealander Blair French’s management strengths as much as his curatorial abilities, Sydney Morning Herald journalist Linda Morris writes. But the chief executive of…
Photographer Amos Chapple Shoots Cold on an iPhone
From December to January, the sun never rises in Murmansk, Russia. Amateur Photographer journalist Peter Dench chats to the New Zealand-born photographer Amos Chapple about his recent reportage, Forty Days Of Darkness, shot on…
Art is at the Frontline of Cathy Fitzgerald’s Fight
The Hollywood Forest in County Carlow, Ireland is a source of quality timber and an inspiration for an artistic couple and their network of collaborators. “We are discipline-jumpers,” New Zealand-born Cathy Fitzgerald says of…
Simon Denny Exhibits Amazon Cage in San Francisco
A new exhibit at San Francisco’s de Young Museum explores what it means to be human in an AI-saturated world with pieces like New Zealand artist Simon Denny’s work, “Amazon worker cage patent drawing…
Behind Security Through Obscurity is Simon Denny
The death knell of the Patagonia vest, at least as a symbol of utopianism co-opted by the tech and venture capital world and transformed into shorthand for a certain kind of unbridled corporate power,…
Emerald McGlashan’s Photos Showing in Kansas
The story of how New Zealander Emerald McGlashan’s artwork ended up in an art gallery in Lindsborg, United States is also the story of how she found a small college – Bethany – in…
First Ans Westra Exhibition In The USA Urban Drift: Aotearoa / New Zealand
The first U.S. exhibition by pioneering New Zealand documentary photographer Ans Westra opens at New York’s Anastasia Photo on the Lower East Side on December 5 ‘Urban Drift: Aotearoa / New Zealand’ centres around…
Major Len Lye Exhibition Motion Composer Opens In Europe
The most comprehensive exhibition of Len Lye’s art to be seen in Europe has opened at the Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland. Featuring his kinetic sculptures, paintings, photograms, drawings, models and films, the exhibition occupies…
Fiac Art Fair’s Jennifer Flay on Challenges Ahead
New Zealand-born Jennifer Flay, the director of Fiac (Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain), insists that France’s most important modern and contemporary art fair can weather future storms, Gareth Harris reports for the Financial Times. The…
Joseph Michael Lights Up UN with Climate Messages
Auckland University of Technology artist in residence Joseph Michael lit the United Nations headquarters in New York last week with an immersive installation that featured images of an iceberg and the messages of six young…
Artist Yuki Kihara to Present NZ in Venice 2021
Though this year’s Venice Biennale still has two months left in its run, some nations, like New Zealand, are already gearing up for the participation in the next iteration, set to open in summer…
Petra Leary Captures Views of Daily Geometry
“Petra Leary sees the world from above. She skates around cities, focusing her lens on becoming the world’s top aerial photographer. The 28-year-old New Zealander is the subject of a newly released Loading Docs…
Performance Artist Alicia Frankovich Set to Work
Alicia Frankovich suspects that the activities we undertake as children can determine the shape of our adult selves, Neha Kale writes for The Sydney Morning Herald. When Frankovich, 38, who’s among the most respected…
Artist’s Black Finch Project Aims to Stop Mine
Queenstown-born visual artist and writer Charlotte Watson is the instigator of the Black Finch Project, for which more than 1400 artworks featuring the endangered black-throated finch have been sent to Australian politicians in protest…
Artist Gill Gatfield Smashes the Glass Ceiling
New Zealand artist Gill Gatfield is profiled in the latest World Sculpture News magazine, with particular focus on her latest work created in glass, which was exhibited in February this year at Silo Park…
Denis Smith Living on Images of Liquid Light
A decade ago, New Zealander Denis Smith was working in Auckland and living the high life. “I was killing myself working, trying to sustain lifestyle,” he says to Wired journalist Michael Hardy. “It developed…
Drilling Down Into Mine Culture With Simon Denny
What does a tiny, nearly extinct bird with a sweet song have to do with the labour practices of a monolithic global corporation? Everything, New Zealand artist Simon Denny tells Stephanie Convery who writes…
Artist Jono Rotman On Guns, Mongrelism, San Francisco
Newly published on online art platform Contemporary HUM, artist and arts writer Emil McAvoy interviews US-based, New Zealand photographer Jono Rotman on his new work ‘Matériel’ which depicts a series of privately owned…
Berlin-Based Simon Denny Opens Show in Hobart
New Zealand artist Simon Denny, who lives in Berlin, talks to The Art Newspaper’s Tim Stone about his latest exhibition, Mine, which has just opened at Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona). The…
Sculptor Neil Dawson Reflects on Public Art
Noted New Zealand sculptor Neil Dawson has been a force in contemporary sculpture for over 30 years, Jessica Stewart writes for American art site, My Modern Met. Most well-known for his large-scale public sculptures,…
Sydney’s Carriageworks Hires Blair French
The international search for the next leader of Carriageworks in Sydney has ended with the appointment of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s New Zealand-born Blair French as the inner city arts precinct’s new chief…
Hidden Tattoos: Bradley’s Puaki Portraits Conceal Maori Markings
New Zealand photographer Michael Bradley’s Puaki exhibition shows what Maori people would look like without their facial tattoos. Daily Mail reporter Ben Hill explains how Bradley used a digital camera to take photos of…
