Aigantighe Art Gallery Hosts An Iconic Robin White Touring Exhibition
Robin White: Tuituia | Something is Happening Here is a selection of artworks from the much-loved and acclaimed 2022 retrospective exhibition that celebrated this contemporary Aotearoa artist, presented by Te Papa and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tmaki.
A selection of works by Dame Robin White (Ngāti Awa, Pāhekā) is the latest touring exhibition from New Zealand's National Museum, opening in Timaru at the Aigantighe Art Gallery on May 9th, 2025.
Robin White: Tuituia | Something is Happening Here is a selection of artworks from the much-loved and acclaimed 2022 retrospective exhibition that celebrated this contemporary Aotearoa artist, presented by Te Papa and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.
The touring exhibition brings together iconic works from the collections of Te Papa and Auckland Art Gallery, spanning White's 50-year career, and will travel to regional venues around Aotearoa over two years.
The title kupu (word) Tuituia denotes continuity and refers to the artist connecting art, peoples and places to their environment. White explains, 'The exhibiting artworks have been out in the world engaging people and people engaging with them. There is a richness in that, it is way beyond me'.
Visitors will not only explore her celebrated portraits and Aotearoa landscapes from the 1970s but also the ambitious collaborative works White has made with artists from across the Pacific and New Zealand in recent years.
Hanahiva Rose, Curator Contemporary Art, Te Papa, says the exhibition celebrates a contemporary New Zealand artist whose imagery continues to shape the country's national identity and a sense of place in Aotearoa and in the Pacific.
'With a prolific career spanning five decades, Dame Robin urges us to look with new eyes at the world around us. From the local fish and chip shop in Maketu, to maneaba in Kiribati, or the intimate interior of a living room in Lautoka, her work pulls people and place into sharp focus.
'Her work, increasingly made in collaboration with other artists, demonstrates her commitment to learning and capacity for transformation. It is a pleasure to bring this exhibition to Aotearoa's regional centres and celebrate the environments that have influenced her work.'
The exhibition is supported by an accompanying publication, Robin White: Something is Happening Here, jointly published by Te Papa Press and Auckland Art Gallery, in May 2022. Edited by Sarah Farrar, Jill Trevelyan, and Nina Tonga, the book includes fresh perspectives by 24 writers and interviewees from Australia, the Pacific, and Aotearoa New Zealand.
For more touring information, please contact: touringexhibitions@tepapa.govt.nz
Biographies
Dame Robin White (born in Te Puke, 1946, Ngāti Awa and Pākehā) is one of New Zealand's leading artists with an exhibition history that spans more than 50 years.
In 1967 White graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland where she was taught by Colin McCahon, whom she cites as an important early influence. After three years as an art teacher at Mana College in Porirua, White moved to the Otago Peninsula where she began working full-time as an artist. Her paintings and screenprints from this time include iconic images of rural and small-town New Zealand life with portraits of friends and family set in a landscape of hills and harbour.
Leaving New Zealand in 1981 to settle in Kiribati, White adapted to her radically different Pacific atoll environment, producing woodcut prints depicting island life in her village. After a fire in 1996 destroyed her house and studio White's work took an exciting new collaborative direction when she began working with I-Kiribati weavers to produce a series of woven pandanus mats.
After returning to New Zealand in 1999, White has continued to work with Pacific artists, bringing together their different ideas and methods to create works that reflect the concept of unity in diversity that is central to the artists' Bahá'í beliefs. These works have been shown in art galleries across New Zealand and overseas, including the recent Matisse Alive exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
In 2013 White was made a distinguished companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit and received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Auckland in 2012. She was named a laureate of the Arts Foundation of New Zealand in 2017.
Hanahiva Rose is Curator Contemporary Art at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
Recent exhibitions include Hye Rim Lee: Eternity (2024) at Te Papa, Memory Spaces (2023) at Te Papa, The long waves of our ocean (2022) at the National Library and Stars start falling (2021-2022) at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and Te Uru.
Rose is widely published as a writer and art historian. With Ruth Buchanan, Johan Lundh, and Aileen Burns, she co-edited Uneven Bodies (Reader) (2021). She is a PhD candidate in Art History at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington.
About Te Papa
Te Papa is Aotearoa New Zealand's much-loved national museum, known for attracting diverse audiences and bringing world-class international exhibitions to visitors.
Since opening, Te Papa has attracted over 35 million visits total and an average of 1.4 million visitors per year.
Located in Wellington, Te Papa is one of New Zealand's most well-known and trusted brands, with research showing it's closely associated with being for all New Zealander's, a kaitiaki of knowledge, a trusted source of information, and a world-class destination.
Te Papa is a top-rated Trip Advisor visitor attraction and was rated #1 in Wellington, #2 in New Zealand and #6 in South Pacific.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Spinoff
3 days ago
- The Spinoff
How two ‘elderly aunties', Robin White and Gaylene Preston, made a film together
One dame said to another dame, 'I could make a film about you'. This Sunday a quietly powerful observational documentary, Grace: A Prayer for Peace, is premiering at the NZ International Film Festival. In the film, renowned painter and printmaker Robin White pours natural pigment over bark cloth with a group of collaborators in a parking lot, eats peaches in her home, and figures out the direction of new works in Japan and Kiribati. A particularly arresting moment begins with White looking over a series of her now-iconic landscapes from the 1970s which made her a key figure in the regionalist movement of 20th-century New Zealand art. Buildings, cars and mountains are flattened and stylised. White looks at them and says, 'this is me as a young painter trying to figure out how to paint'. Now, White is one of New Zealand's most significant living artists, with a career spanning 50 years and counting. In 2003 she was appointed a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to painting and printmaking. In 2009 this became Dame Companion. There's another renowned dame behind the camera too – Gaylene Preston. She is known for presenting serious subjects with humour, warmth and compassion and for a dedication to New Zealand film and New Zealand subjects, particularly artists. In Grace, White is relaxed and open, as if she's known the person behind the camera forever. In fact, it was through the film that the two dames came to know each other. Now, they talk like old friends, finishing each other's reminiscences and memories. So how did it all happen? Gaylene Preston: Rita Angus put us together. I was at the opening of a Rita Angus retrospective at Te Papa in 2021. I'd had a head injury. I was avoiding noisy public places. I decided to go, but I didn't think I'd last very long. When everyone was getting a cup of tea, I saw Robin was sitting at a table over from me. I looked at her, and I thought, if that's Robin White, I want to tell her what a brilliant painter she is, and that I love Summer Grass. So I went over, I introduced myself, and I found myself saying, 'Well, I've made a film about Rita Angus, and I've made a film about Hone Tuwhare, and I've made a film about Keri Hulme. I could make a film about you.' I heard it come out of my mouth, and while I didn't disagree with it, I couldn't believe I'd said that. At that time, I had given up filmmaking. I'd had a really nasty concussion for some years, so I thought my filmmaking days were over, and here I was telling Robin White that I'd make a film. Robin White: Well, I'm looking at this woman who introduced herself and thinking, oh my gosh, this is Gaylene Preston, I know who you are. This is a real honour. I felt hugely privileged to be approached by this lady, but at the same time I'm looking at Gaylene and thinking, gosh, lady, I don't know if you're you – are you OK? Hopefully, my natural politeness kicked in. I can't remember how I responded. I didn't know at this point that you'd had this head injury, but I instinctively felt there was something about this lady, that she's not herself. There was something about you, Gaylene. But I knew this is a solid lady. This is not a flake. I'm dealing with a woman with a formidable reputation for doing stuff. It left me thinking there was more to talk about. These things require time and conversation. At the back of my mind, I'm thinking, park it for a time when we can be face to face and revisit this, which is what happened, wasn't it, Gaylene. Preston: I was very grateful for that, because I wasn't in the shape to be making a film. It was a full year later that we got together to talk about what a film might be. White: In December the following year I was driving up to Auckland with all my gear packed, getting ready for a period of working collaboratively with Ebonie Fifita and Falehanga 'o Laka. I was going to be in Wellington just briefly, so I got in touch with you. I think one of the first things I said to you when we finally had that coffee on Cuba Street is that I wasn't really interested in a film about me, but what I thought might be more purposeful, more useful in the bigger scheme of things, would be a film that addressed the idea of artists working collaboratively. Preston: Film is a highly collaborative medium. So making a film about artistic, creative collaboration, particularly a collaboration of making big, huge, messy bark cloth work with a group of women, is immediately very interesting for a filmmaker. White: It all just went 'click, click, click' from there. But it wasn't until the beginning of January 2023 that you came to Laka where we were working, is that right? Preston: Robin, Ebonie and Ruha Fifita were working at an art space on Onehunga Mall, which I was familiar with. My camera was broken so I filmed on my phone. In my mind, I was really doing research, and I would go and get the real money to make a real film with a real film crew and high quality cameras later. We did use some very high range cameras filming Robin's retrospective, but I found once we hit the edit, there was a real lively intimacy to what I had originally filmed. I don't think documentaries are all about swanky camera work. The material I thought I was shooting for research turned out to be more valuable than I thought. I'm still shooting. I have to keep shooting until the big Kiribati painting is finished. I'm painting a globally important artist painting a big master work. So why would I stop just because I've delivered my feature film? That'd be silly, wouldn't it? White: People have asked me what it was like being filmed. In some of those sequences which are quite intimate and personal and emotional I was unaware of the presence of a camera. I suppose fly on the wall is not a bad description. I didn't feel nervous. Partly that's to do with trusting a fellow artist who has this amazing history of creativity. The other thing is that the context of collaborative art making is a context of a busy social environment, a lot of comings and goings, a lot of discussion, a lot of very open conversations about what is being done, the decision making, the critiquing of things. It's very different from the – quote, unquote – Western notion of the artist alone and being very protective and very secretive. Preston: The job is to be as unobtrusive as possible – that's the filmmaking tradition I come from, and that relates right back to Barry Barclay making Tangata Whenua in 1974. If you're making a film, an observational documentary about something, if you intrude, you've just lost what you're there to do. Robin and I were getting to know one another more deeply through this time. We didn't know one another before, but once we met, we had so many things in common. We've both been to art school, and we both came up through the public school system in New Zealand after the war, when everything was for the kiddies. It was child-based, play-based, art-based, primary education. Fortunately, we had a very progressive education. We're the art room people, that's what we share, isn't it Robin. White: Yeah, possibly for different reasons. I found primary school was a very lonely experience for me. I didn't enjoy going to school at all. I was much happier just at home, just doing whatever at home, but once I got to intermediate school, there was an art room with a dedicated art teacher, so I found my place. It feels like there's also a lot in common about the way we've proceeded in our careers. Maybe it's to do with commitment and a certain fearlessness, risk taking, in a world which if not openly hostile, is at least not all that encouraging for women. I don't have anything too much to complain about in that regard, but maybe because I'm just so bolshie. Preston: I've got a reputation for being bolshie, but I think I'm really kind of pleasant. In the end I'm not just gonna do something because I think that's what the market wants. In Aotearoa, we have made very few films about artists, and yet in this year's festival, there's three or four and they're made by women, incidentally. But they've been famously hard to fund. Mainstream networks aren't screening films about artists, let alone New Zealand artists. It took me 30 years to get the money to make a film about Rita Angus. They just kept saying, 'No, we don't do dead artists, thanks.' That's New Zealand culture for you. Anyway, we knew a few people in common from the old days, and we know the same songs that weren't necessarily known by the others because they were too young. We were having these conversations, having a great old gossip, and the others really liked listening in.
Scoop
24-07-2025
- Scoop
Earthmovers Start Setting The Stage For Theatre Upgrade
Press Release – Timaru District Council Local company Paul Smith Earthmoving will start work this week to demolish the structures that are being upgraded and replaced in preparation for the earthworks required to build the laneway and museum. Contractors move onto site this week to set the stage for the project to restore Timaru's Theatre Royal. Local company Paul Smith Earthmoving will start work this week to demolish the structures that are being upgraded and replaced in preparation for the earthworks required to build the laneway and museum. Mayor Nigel Bowen said that it was good to see the physical works kick off on the project to bring new life back to more than 100 year old theatre. 'We've been too long without a theatre and have missed out on so many events and shows coming to town, so it's fantastic to see this transformational project kick off. 'It wasn't great to see all the things we've missed out on the past few years for the lack of a good venue to host them. 'The recent Six60 Grassroots tour was in theatres of our size in provincial towns throughout the country, we've not had a visit from the 7 Days crew in years, and everyone misses the major shows from the Drama League after the amazing Beauty and the Beast in 2018. 'Carols by Candlelight always filled the auditorium with light and song, proud parents shared their kids' achievements at the ARA graduation, and I think nearly every kid in the district has been on stage with Jump Jam over the years. 'The comedian Bill Bailey is playing in Oamaru in November, which could have easily been in Timaru, and Jimmy Carr is playing an 11-stop tour of NZ in places of similar size to us. The lack of a large Theatre has meant we've not even been in the running for this kind of show. 'The project isn't just to breathe life back into the theatre and bring it back to what it was. 'It's to modernise the venue and put an operating model in place to aggressively market the venue and bring shows to Timaru, so we can all benefit from the cultural and economic boost that brings.' Project Director Paul Haggath of TEAM Projects Advisory said that the commencement of the demolition works is a major milestone for the Theatre and Museum redevelopment. 'It has taken a lot of hard work from the whole project team to reshape the project to a point where we can now start the physical works, and it is great to see the project now moving forwards with pace,' he said. Murray Beeby, Projects Manager for Paul Smith Earthmoving, said: 'Paul Smith Earthmoving is delighted to be involved in this exciting project. 'We have watched its progress over the past few years and relish the opportunity to play our part in the redevelopment of what will be a central focus point for the Timaru community.' The demolition work takes place from July through to early September, the next stage of the project is the civil and earthworks, which will be kicking off immediately thereafter. A project hub for the theatre, which will offer the latest designs and behind the scenes information from the project, will be launched soon on the Timaru District Council website.
RNZ News
13-07-2025
- RNZ News
Decorative Art Design History through Second Hand Shopping
history arts 32 minutes ago As avid opshoppers will know, second hand and antique stores still turn up treasures. Objects from past eras, fallen foul of fashion but that will inevitably return to the cool shelf. Of such shoppers Poneke Wellington's Walter Cook is a collector legend. Cook's first purchase was as a 24-year-old student in 1965. It was an art nouveau tea set from the Willis street shop Odds and Ends. Cook didn't just have a rare passion for old things, as an obsessive collector and reader he had the rare ability to think beyond trends and smartly create a rich private collection, at a bargain. A collection that tells the history of decorative art, from the Arts and Crafts Movement from the 1860s on, through Art Deco, to 1970s modernism. And then, just as the market caught up with Walter in the late 1980s, Cook had the public largesse to gift his collection to the nation. Justine Olsen is curator of decorative art and design at Te Papa. The title of her recently released book Towards Modernism: The Walter Cook Collection at Te Papa, is deceptive. Deceitive because this smartly designed book iss about far more than just about Walter Cook and the collection. It provides an accessible history of modern decorative art as it relates to Aotearoa as a trading nation. It also highlights notable designers through beautiful objects, and chronicles many great retailers and passionate antique dealers along the way. She spoke to Culture 101's Mark Amery.
