Rhana Jean Devenport ONZM (born 1960) is an Australian-born art curator and museum professional. She was director of the Auckland Art Gallery from 2013 to 2018, and is as of February 2022 [update] director of the Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide.
Devenport began her career as an art and theatre teacher, and a practising artist. [1] From 1994 to 2004 she was senior project officer with the Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery. [2] She was visual arts manager with the Sydney Festival in 2004, an independent curator, curator in residence at Artspace, Auckland for three months in 2005, manager of public programmes and publications with the Biennale of Sydney in 2005-2006. [2] [3]
Devenport was appointed as director of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth in 2006. [4] In this role she led the fundraising effort for the development of the Len Lye Centre. [4] She was appointed director of the Auckland Art Gallery in 2013. [1] [5] In 2015, Devenport took part in the second annual Global Museum Leaders Colloquium, held at the Metropolitan Museum. [6]
In 2015, Devenport curated New Zealand artist Lisa Reihana's video work In Pursuit of Venus [infected] at Auckland Art Gallery. Reihana was selected to present this work as New Zealand's representative at the 2017 Venice Biennale, with Devenport as the curator for the presentation. [7]
Devenport left the Auckland Art Gallery to become director of the Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide in October 2018. [8] She remains in this position as of February 2022 [update] . [9]
In the 2018 New Year Honours, Devenport was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to arts governance. [10]
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Francis Upritchard is a New Zealand contemporary artist based in London. In 2009, she represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale.
Leonard Charles Huia Lye was a New Zealand artist known primarily for his experimental films and kinetic sculpture. His films are held in archives including the New Zealand Film Archive, British Film Institute, Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Pacific Film Archive at University of California, Berkeley. Lye's sculptures are found in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Berkeley Art Museum. Although he became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1950, much of his work went to New Zealand after his death, where it is housed at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth.
Michael Te Rakato Parekōwhai is a New Zealand sculptor and a professor at the University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts. He is of Ngāriki Rotoawe and Ngāti Whakarongo descent and his mother is Pākehā.
Dame Cheryll Beatrice Sotheran was a New Zealand museum professional. She was the founding chief executive of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and was credited with the successful completion of the museum, considered the largest international museum project of the 1990s.
Yuki Kihara is an interdisciplinary artist of Japanese and Samoan descent. In 2008, her work was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; it was the first time a New Zealander and the first time a Pacific Islander had a solo show at the institution. Titled Shigeyuki Kihara: Living Photographs, the exhibition opened from 7 October 2008 to 1 February 2009. Kihara's self-portrait photographs in the exhibitions included nudes in poses that portrayed colonial images of Polynesian people as sexual objects. Her exhibition was followed by an acquisition of Kihara's work for the museum's collection.
The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery is a contemporary art museum at New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand. The gallery receives core funding from the New Plymouth District Council. Govett-Brewster is recognised internationally for contemporary art.
Fiona Dorothy Pardington is a New Zealand artist, her principal medium being photography.
Gregory Burke is a New Zealand museum director, writer and curator. In 2013, he was named executive director & CEO of the Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Canada and the Remai Modern Art Gallery of Saskatchewan.
Lisa Marie Reihana is a New Zealand artist. Her video work, In Pursuit of Venus [Infected] (2015), which examines early encounters between Polynesians and European explorers, was featured at the 2017 Venice Biennale.
Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi is a Tongan artist who has lived in New Zealand since 1978. He has exhibited in major exhibitions in New Zealand and abroad. Several major collections include his work. The 2010 Art and Asia Pacific Almanac describes him as "Tongan art's foremost ambassador".
Monica Romaine Brewster was a New Zealand arts patron and women's rights advocate. She is best known as the founding benefactor of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery.
Ann Shelton is a New Zealand photographer and academic.
Peter Chanel Peryer was a New Zealand photographer. In 2000, he was one of the five inaugural laureates of the Arts Foundation of New Zealand.
Peter Robinson is a New Zealand artist of Māori descent. He is an associate professor at the Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland.
Fiona Clark is a New Zealand social documentary photographer, one of the first photographers to document New Zealand's LGBT scene. In the 1970s and 1980s she photographed Karangahape Road, and the clubs Mojo's and Las Vegas Club.
Ruth Buchanan is a contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand artist of Te Āti Awa, Taranaki and Pakeha decent. Buchanan was born in Ngamotu New Plymouth and grew up in Poneke Wellington. She lives and works in Berlin.
Darcy Bruce Espie Lange was a New Zealand artist born in Urenui. Lange studied at the Elam School of Fine Arts (1964–1967) creating hard-edge abstract sculptures before studying at the Royal College of Art in London and shifting his focus to moving image and photography.
Donald Sinclair Driver (1930–2011) was a New Zealand artist born in Hastings. Driver was self-taught and worked in a variety of media including painting, sculpture, collage and assemblage. His work was often recognized for its use of everyday or vernacular materials.
Denise Kum is a New Zealand artist. Her works are held in the collection of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and the University of Auckland art collection.
Claire Regnault is a New Zealand historian, curator and non-fiction writer. In 2022, her book Dressed: Fashionable Dress in Aotearoa New Zealand 1840 to 1910 won an Ockham New Zealand Book Award.
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