Opening Weekend Talk Imogen Taylor: From Behind
A talk featuring artist Imogen Taylor and curator Dr Kirsty Baker, from City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi, on the opening weekend of the exhibition From Behind.
From Behind brings together new and recent paintings by Imogen Taylor, which playfully engage with the weight of art's histories. Turning her brush to the tenuous space between abstraction and representation, Taylor considers what it means to paint in the wake of the histories and the places that lie behind us.
The exhibition will be presented at Dunedin Public Art Gallery in 2026 before its display at City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi in early 2027.
FREE 11am Saturday 2 May
Imogen Taylor was born in Whangārei, Aotearoa and currently resides in London. Taylor earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts in 2007, later completing a Post-Graduate Diploma of Fine Arts in 2010. Through geometric painted abstractions, Taylor engages the LGBTQIA+ legacies of modernism in Aotearoa and beyond, while critically satirising Pākehā national identity tropes within the New Zealand male painting canon.
Taylor regularly exhibits with Michael Lett Gallery in Auckland, alongside exhibitions throughout New Zealand and internationally. Notable accolades include being awarded a 6-month residency at the ISCP in New York in 2020, as well as being the recipient of the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship at Otago University in 2019, and the McCahon House residency in 2017.
Dr Kirsty Baker is a writer, art historian and curator of contemporary art. She is based in Te Whanganui a Tara where she works as a curator at City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi. Her writing on art has been published in a wide range of publications, including Art New Zealand, The Big Idea, Artist Profile, Art and Australia and The Pantograph Punch. Her award-winning book Sight Lines: Women and Art in Aotearoa was published by Auckland University Press in 2024.
Some of her recent curatorial projects include Cora Allan: Recording Mauri, Moments of Light and Earth (2026), Site Seeing (2025), Memory Lines (2024), Ngahuia Harrison: Coastal Cannibals (2024), Archive: Alter / Image (2024), Stella Brennan: Ancestor Technologies (2023) and Ana Iti: I must shroud myself in a stinging nettle (2022).
[image: Imogen Taylor From Behind 2026. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Lett Thomas, Auckland. Photography by B J Deakin.]
Artist Talk by John Vea
Staying Power opening weekend
Saturday 2 May | 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Enjoy the first day of the exhibition Staying Power with an artist talk by John Vea. Staying Power brings together a group of major works from the DPAG Collection by artists from Te Moana Nui a Kiwa, including works by Kalisolaite ‘Uhila, Angela Tiatia, John Vea and a project developed in collaboration with Ōtepoti Pasifika Arts Collective.
John Vea (Tonga, Aotearoa New Zealand) is an artist whose practice encompasses sculpture, moving image installation, and performance. In 2021 he completed a practice-led PhD at Auckland University of Technology, and is currently a lecturer in Fine Arts at University of Canterbury Whare Wānanga o Waitaha. Vea’s work explores migrant experiences, with a focus on the lived experiences of the Pacific diaspora.
FREE 3pm, Saturday 2 May
[Image: John Vea, Concrete is as concrete doesn’t 2017. Video still. Collection Dunedin Public Art Gallery]
Te Ahikāroa
Artists & Stories of Dunedin Public Art Gallery
28 March 2026 - 30 June 2027
Te Ahikāroa invites viewers on a journey through the collection of Dunedin Public Art Gallery, shaped by artworks and stories that have been gathered together since the collection was first exhibited in 1884. This exhibition celebrates art and artists, the many paths that have brought their work to Ōtepoti Dunedin, and the possibilities that emerge when art, ideas and people come together.
Te Ahikāroa celebrates Aotearoa New Zealand’s first public art collection, and its place and identity in Ōtepoti Dunedin. This is a collection and institution grounded by a belief in art to connect people and ideas, and open minds to different ways of thinking. The exhibition reflects the journey of the institution, using works from the collection to tell stories of arrivals and departures, new foundations and relationships, and the possibilities that exist just beyond the horizon.
Te Ahikāroa – Artists and Stories of Dunedin Public Art Gallery 2026 - Installation view
Ralph Hotere and Bill Culbert P.R.O.P. 1991, Corrugated Iron and Neon Light Tubes. Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Purchased 1991 with funds from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society. Reproduced by permission of the Hotere Foundation Trust and the Bill & Pip Culbert Trust- Installation view.
Coffee Morning,
Wednesday 22 April 10.30am,
DPAG Auditorium
Warming the Stories within Te Ahikāroa: Join DPAG Curators Lauren Gutsell and Lucy Hammonds to celebrate the Gallery's blazing new collection book, Te Ahikāroa – Artists & Stories of Dunedin Public Art Gallery. All welcome. Please note, the book is currently available in the Gallery shop, at a 20% discount to members.
Tomahawk, Robert Nettleton Field (Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1899, d.1987)1926
Dunedin Public Gallery Event
A day of public events to launch Te Ahikāroa, which celebrates the artists and stories of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery collection. This major new book is being launched alongside a collection-based exhibition of the same name, which uses artworks to explore ideas of arrival and departure; ways of occupying and experiencing land and the natural environment; buildings, structures and spaces of shelter and protection; and the sharing of stories through art.
Further information available here: https://dunedin.art.museum/events/te-ahikaroa/?date=2026-03-28
TE AHIKĀROA
Explore the collection based exhibition which explores ideas of arrival and departure. This exhibition works alongside the wonderful new book of the same name.
Meet The artist evening event
We’re delighted to be hosting another Meet the Artists event in July, this time featuring the stunning work of a group of local botanical artists, led by Jane Fitzgerald, whom we interviewed on Sightlines late last year. The artists will have examples of their work on display, and we’ll be doing an informal live interview format to gain some insight into how they work as individual artists, and as a group. Drinks and nibbles provided. Free to members; $5 non-members.
Dunedin School of Art
Thursday 24 July
Les Joynes
A Place Beyond
Les will present on his series FormLAB, exhibited in Brazil. Singapore, Mongolia, South Korea, France and China. He talks about how collaboration can activate a shared mind and create new pathways towards artmaking. DSA Artist-in-Residence Les Joynes is a New York-based multimedia artist, educator and research scholar working across installation, video and socially-engaged art. His work explores how place is constructed through fieldwork, immersive environments and performative encounters and has been exhibited at galleries and museums internationally. He holds a BA (Hons) Fine Art from Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, an MA Fine Art, Goldsmiths, and PhD from Leeds Metropolitan University. He is 2025 Research Scholar at Columbia University and explores emerging models for art education.
The Guinea Pig Problem: towards a critic's history of contemporary art in Aotearoa New Zealand
A presentation by Dr Ed Hanfling. All welcome. Room F209, F Block, Otago Polytechnic, Forth St, Dunedin
AGM and Lecture. Save the date. Federico Freschi - ‘Art is not snatched, but won by study’: Why art(s) education matters
In this lecture at the AGM, Federico Freschi considers the value of an art(s) education to a society that nurtures and sustains it and argues for the transformative role it plays in the creation of a more meaningful, functional, and sustainable world.
Grahame Sydney - From Here to There: an Otago Tale
The 2023 William Mathew Hodgkins memorial lecture by Sir Grahame Sydney is about the progress of a conventional middle class Dunedin boy from the Kew Hill, through to an unexpected lifetime career of professional art, nearly all of it spent in Otago. How did that happen? And what have I learned along the way ? Now aged 75, I'll talk about what I think matters and illustrate the journey with selected paintings from more than 5 decades of work.
Entry is free for Society members but a koha for non members.
Otago Art Society Members' Evening
OAS extends a warm welcome to DPAG Society members.
DPAGS President Ross Currie, judge of the Otago Art Society's 147th Annual Exhibition is the guest speaker and will discuss his selections and talk about his own experiences as an art collector. Also, several artists with work in the exhibition will talk about their art practice. The OAS Annual Exhibition will finish on 22nd July, so take this opportunity to see some quality artworks.
Coffee Morning Talk: Painting the Male Nude
Dunedin printmaker, jeweller and painter John Z. Robinson was inspired as a young art student by prominent English artists such as Francis Bacon and David Hockney, and acclaimed local artists such as Ralph Hotere, each of whom painted and drew from live models.. John will give a brief history of the male nude in art, and discuss how he came to incorporate painting nudes into his practice over many years. What are the challenges and rewards of working with a live model? What are the expressive possibilities of working with the human form?
Join us for a fascinating discussion. Free for Society members; $5 non-members.
A Body of Evidence - Linda Cook - Art in Law XX
April - November 2023
Faculty of Law, University of Otago
Curated by Marion Wassenaar
Dunedin School of Art
This series of paintings bears witness to a period of time, a time spent building a body of work as evidence of my Master of Fine Arts project, titled Incandescent Molecules.
The investigative nature of this painterly project was built upon found cardboard shapes, each selected and curated to locate awkward and unusual forms which exist within the found structure, whilst also considering the unpredictable elements of pleasure that just occur. I want the paintings to visually challenge, seeking out un-pretty relationships via the clumsy, squanky and confronting; actively looking for moments of attraction within the forms and colours that delight yet confront, these works step forward to reveal themselves. These are the moments when the extraordinary and unusual clunkiness in the painting begin to coalesce, delivering intrigue and pleasure. Each painting develops its own personality as the awkwardness and slippage of the boards, and the vibrant edges and viscous ooze within the layers, delivers dynamic visual pleasure. This mode of practice accepts the emergence of the unknown and celebrates the fact that materials are full of surprises.
In acknowledging that paintings have an independent presence, our thinking transitions away from anthropocentric concepts of making, raising an awareness that materials have agency in the process and that something new can emerge from the material. Working in this way, maker and matter merge.
DPAGS SITE VISIT
Tour of Northview Sculpture Garden
Join us at 61A Main South Rd, East Taieri at 10.45am, Wed 15 March, for a tour of this fabulous garden. Tucked under Saddle Hill, a block divided from original farmland has morphed into the beautiful Northview Garden. Featuring a selection of beautiful spaces with trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, spectacular views over the Taieri Plain, and several large sculptures, including some by Bannockburn artist Odelle Morshuis.
Drive-on access with plenty of seats and flat spaces throughout.
Entry: $5 DPAG Members/ $10 non-Members
Meet at the garden (no booking necessary) at 10.45am
Lift available: please contact Dawn on 021 259 8571 (departing from the DPAGS Octagon office at 10.15am)
See you there!
Christmas Event
Join us as we celebrate with champagne, strawberries and Christmas nibbles. Gallery staff will be conducting members-only behind-the-scenes tours of the Gallery collection, featuring a private viewing of our major 2022 donation, Rita Angus' Lake Wanaka.
RSVP today to book your place on one of the tours!
Defying Biopower – a talk by Johanna Zelmer
DPAG Auditorium
Defying Biopower
Dunedin jeweller Johanna Zelmer is exploring how AI data collection and DNA sequencing are used as instruments of surveillance and control. Zelmer combines silver and gold with medical glass, rubber gaskets and other waste products from DNA sequencing to produce her astonishing, provocative range of collars and chokers. Can wearing a piece of jewellery also be an act of defiance?
$5 cash at the door for non DPAG Society members
Talk by Federico Freschi, Otago Polytechnic
It is with great pleasure that the Research Network in Cultures, Histories and Identities in Visual Studies at the University of Otago and the Otago Polytechnic Research Office announce the second talk in the 2022 series of Wednesday night research seminars.
Federico Freschi, Professor and Head of College Te Maru Pūmanawa | Creative Practice & Enterprise at the Otago Polytechnic will present on Wednesday, October 26, 5:30-7:00 pm.
For more information see the flyer below and also on our blog at: https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/visualstudies/
Paint, Practice and Power – a talk by Anita Desoto
Anita DeSoto in her recent works has appropriated the works she admires of Old Masters but bringing women to the foreground rather than accessories, victims and pawns to be bribed and seduced.
Flipping the narrative, men are obscured or removed to make her paintings womens’ stories, countering what she sees as misogyny in the earlier paintings represent.
A Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society Talk.
$5 cash at the door for non DPAG Society members
[image: Anita DeSoto The Sisterhood Advocating Vegetarianism, after Rubens (detail). Oil on signboard. Courtesy of the artist.]
Test Event
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