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Coupland Art, 55 Cable St, Wellington (2026)

07/08/2026

Welcome to the Coupland Art Journal, a publication providing transparent, independent analysis, secondary market commentary, and advisory insights into the fine art ecosystem in Aotearoa New Zealand and beyond. Read the full article now on Substack via the link in bio.

24/06/2026

I was really pleased to get to the 2026 Sydney Biennale, Rememory, curated by Hoor Al Qasimi. Exploring how memory, ancestry and overlooked histories shape identity. The Biennale included over 80 artists from 37 countries and with only one day to visit AGNSW, White Bay Power Station and the Chau Chak Wing Museum at University of Sydney, it was an intense immersion into works centred on First Nations knowledge, diaspora, displacement and collective remembrance, reclaiming stories that have been forgotten, erased or marginalised.

A day of visual and conceptual overload, but a rewarding reminder of the capacity of contemporary art to hold difficult histories, cultural knowledge and collective memory in productive tension.
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Biennale of Sydney
White Bay Power Station, Wangal

– Frank Young & The Kulata Tjuta Project, Rurrkuni, 2025 / Tjala Arts /
– Kapwani Kiwanga, Flowers for Africa (ongoing series, various dates) /
– Abdul Abdullah, North Cronulla Beach car park approx. 1.45pm, 2005. Mitchell
Road approx. 2.40pm, 2025. Cronulla Railway Station approx. 3.00pm, 2025 /
– Yaritji Young, Tjala TjukurpaI-IV, 2025, Tjala Tjukurpa, Biennale wall painting
commission, 2026 / / Tjala Arts
– Angelica Serech, Mani kan mum na na chire, xa, oj uluw (Do not feel so superior,
you are dust too), 2025 /
– Ngurrara Artists, Ngurrara Canvas II, 1997
– Maritea Dæhlin, Represent, 2022 / .daehlin
– Chang En-Man, The Future is the Past, the Path to the Ancestral Spirits, Biennale commission, 2026 / .maan
– Dorothy Cross, Red Road, 2021 /
– Ema Shin, Heart of Absent Women (Tree of Family), 2026 / .shin
– Benjamin Work, PĀPAAKI, 2025 /
– Khalil Rabah, Common Threads, 2025 /
– Behrouz Boochani, The Horizon Is a Host of Colours, 2026 /
– Chen Chieh-Jen, Voices of Pathologized Bodies, 2025
– Daisy Quezada Ureña, Somos Nosotros, 2026 /
– Nikesha Breeze, Living Histories, 2026 /

23/05/2026

Last night at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki marked the unveiling of a significant cultural gift, with Greg Moyle formally promising a major group of paintings to the collection.

The generosity behind donations of this scale cannot be overstated. Public collections are shaped not only through institutional acquisitions, but also through the generosity of individuals whose gifts help strengthen holdings and fill important gaps often beyond the reach of institutional collecting budgets. In a New Zealand context, a gift of this calibre is exceptionally rare, particularly given the absence of the taxation incentives that internationally encourage major cultural bequests of this nature.

Included are remarkably important and scarce works by Rita Angus, Michael Smither, Russell Clark, Frances Hodgkins and Raymond McIntyre. The Raymond McIntyre portrait study is a particular highlight, an extraordinary and beautiful example, this work was painted in London around 1914 while McIntyre was living and working there within avant garde artistic circles.

Congratulations also to Senior Curator Julia Waite and the Auckland Art Gallery team for helping bring this extraordinary group of works into the collection.

Thank you to Greg Moyle .moyle.5 and family for such an exceptional act of generosity.

21/05/2026

FUTURE COUNTRY at the NGV Australia is a compelling articulation of intergenerational practice and cultural continuity.

Developed through the Country Road + NGV First Nations Commissions initiative, the exhibition pairs emerging First Nations artists with established Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mentors .

The structure of the exhibition resonates with the Māori concept of Tuakana–Teina, the reciprocal relationship between an older or more experienced person (tuakana) and a younger or less experienced person (teina).

Mā te tuakana ka tōtika te teina, mā te teina ka tōtika te tuakana.
The older will guide the younger, and the younger will guide the older.

FUTURE COUNTRY demonstrates exactly this principle. The exhibition is not simply about mentorship, but about the continuation of cultural knowledge through exchange, collaboration, trust and collective futures.

1 & 2. Yhonnie Scarce (mentor) and Carly Tarkari Dodd (artist) .art
3. Megan Cope (mentor) and Boneta-Marie Mabo, (artist)
4 - 5. Doreen Jinggarrabarra, (mentor) and Stephanie Ali, (artist)
Photographic work - Brook Andrew (mentor) and Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis (artist)
6 - 7. Clothilde Bullen (mentor) and Katie West (artist)
8. Brenda L Croft (mentor) and Paul Girrawah House
9. Karla Dickens (mentor) and Charlotte Allingham

15/05/2026

Visiting TarraWarra Museum of Art and seeing 'TarraWarra International 2026: System Release', curated by my partner at Coupland Cormack, Dr Emily Cormack, was such a pleasure. The drive out through the Yarra Valley was a reminders of how close this beautiful gallery is to Melbourne.

'System Release' brings together artists from Aotearoa, Australia and Mexico whose works respond to instability, ecological pressure, systems of power, technology, and the ways we try to make meaning within uncertainty. Dr Emily Cormack has brought together practices spanning large-scale installation, moving image and sculpture, creating dynamic conversations between works that allow tension, ambiguity and different knowledge systems to sit together cohesively.

1. Dr. Emily Cormakc wiht Megan Cope, 'A great depression' 2024
2. Daniel Boyd , 'Untitled', 2014
3. Nikau Hindin
4. Jose Davila , Esfuerzo Comun, 2022/25
5. Francis Carmody , 'Canine Trap III', 2026
6 & 7. Dane Mitchell
8. Alicia Frankovich, , 'Bio techno imaginations (1-13)', 2025-26
9. Shannon Te A0 , 'ia rā, ia rā (rere runga, rere raro), Everyday (I fly high, I fly low), 2021
10. Marco Fusinato

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13/05/2026

Brett Graham's 'Doorway to Night' at Gow Langsford is one of the most profound works I’ve seen in a commercial gallery context in Aotearoa.

Graham binds together personal loss, histories of leadership and broader cultural memory through material and spatial experience. The work honours the passing of his parents and senior Māori artists, including Selwyn Muru, who shaped his practice, while opening into larger conversations around whenua, continuity and intergenerational knowledge.

Reimagining the 1840s Onehunga whare of Pōtatau Te Wherowhero near the Manukau Harbour, Graham has created an immersive environment constructed from tī kōuka leaves, materials associated with remembrance, endurance and wāhi tapu. The work operates simultaneously as architecture, memorial and space of mourning.

Inside the darkened interior there is a stillness. The scent of tī kōuka, quiet soundscape and subdued atmosphere create a contemplative environment that slows the body and heightens awareness. It is peaceful, allowing visitors to reflect on grief, whakapapa, succession and memory.

When Gow Langsford opened its large Onehunga premises it created a space capable of hosting exhibitions of museum scale and calibre. 'Doorway to Night' fully realises that ambition, feeling institutional in both scale and conceptual depth.

Closing this Saturday 16 May.

07/05/2026

More incredible mahi toi at the Aotearoa Art Fair, including some favourite uku mahi and an extraordinary immersive installation at the satellite event 'Kindred' at Silo, curated by Public Record, exhibiting the work of Rona Ngāhuia Osborne. Ātaahua to experience such a strong breadth of contemporary practice grounded in materiality, whakapapa and whakaaro.

1. Rona Ngāhuia Osborne , Public Record at Silo, 'Kindred' on until 10 May, recommended!
2. Maia Kreisler , Season
3. Baye Riddell , Ester McDonald, Thea Ceramics, and others from Kurutai Collective, curated by Chantel Matthews with 17 Māori uku mahi.
4. Tracy Keith , Tim Melville
5 & 6. Ngaroma Riley , Tim Melville
7. Nadia Marychurch , HORIZONS, curated by Becky Hemus

8. Ron Te Kawa
9. Rangi Kipa , Melanie Roger
10. Let's Talk Art, 'Kōrero - Contemporary Māori Art' at the fair with panelists Rangi Kipa , Chevron Hassett , Ngahuia Harrison and mediated so well by Zoe Black .a.black. Loved this korero.

30/03/2026

It was a pleasure to celebrate the opening of Grace’s new elegant, light filled gallery with Emil Scheffmann on Saturday, with Mau Āhua, a joint exhibition by Georgia Tikaputini Douglas Hood (Ngāti Rangiwewehi, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Whakaue) and Atarangi Anderson (Te Aitanga a Hauiti, Ngāti Hauiti) .

Both wāhine Māori explore Māoritanga through distinct material and conceptual languages.

Georgia Tikaputini Douglas Hood’s hand-built ancestral figures connect to whakapapa, drawing on European ceramic forms and with koru and rauponga whakairo, tūpuna are felt as a presence within the works, connecting material to ancestry and identity.

In conversation, we spoke about the masters of uku, including Manos Nathan, a foundational figure in contemporary uku practice and the privilege I had of working with leading uku artist Wi Taepa (Te-Roro-o-Te-Rangi, Te Arawa, Te Āti Awa) on the commission of six major works for the InterContinental foyer for Precinct Properties.

Emerging from this lineage, Georgia’s work moves away from overt Māori design language, instead articulating te ao Māori through nuanced layering of narrative.
Mau Āhua – until 9 May.
Images
1–6. Opening of 'Mau Āhua' at Grace
2. Georgia Tikaputini Douglas Hood
3. Atarangi Anderson
4. Emil Scheffmann
7–10. Wi Taepa, 'Tū Tangata', InterContinental, Deloitte Centre, One Queen Street, for Precinct Properties
,

19/03/2026

Within the foyer at 55 Molesworth Street, the mana whenua design framework and Ana Iti’s (Te Rarawa, Ngāi Tūpoto, Ngāti Here, Pākehā) 'Reaching Across a Great Distance' operate in quiet and powerful conversation.
Developed by Precinct Properties in partnership with Te Āti Awa Taranaki Whānui, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Len Hetet at Baked Design Limited the mana whenua works embed the narratives of Te Ara Tupua and He Auripo into the architectural fabric of the building. They articulate whakapapa, kaitiakitanga and the living relationship between whenua, moana and awa. Patterns drawn from poutama and taniko reference knowledge systems, protection and continuity, while the pūrākau of Whātaitai and Ngake shapes an understanding of movement and transformation across Te Whanganui a Tara.
Ana Iti’s sculpture inhabits this same narrative field. Her rippling steel lines echo the whakataukī He Auripo, the reminder that where water moves there is life. Like the mana whenua design elements, the work registers both seismic history and ongoing responsibility. Gestures that began as breath traced on glass are translated into enduring material, resonating with mana whenua kaupapa to create a legacy linking past, present and future.
Together, these works transform the foyer into a site of layered meaning, where art, architecture and mana whenua design converge to honour the guardianship and living stories of this place.

Building designed by Jasmax
Led by Julian O’Neale
Fabrication by Gillies Metaltech.
Ana Iti's work commissioned by Coupland Cormack
Architect and collaborator Mikhail Rodrick
Image 2_ Jason Mann Photography

13/03/2026

“Where water moves there is life.”
We are pleased to share Ana Iti’s (Te Rarawa, Ngāi Tūpoto, Ngāti Here, Pākehā) 'Reaching Across a Great Distance', commissioned by Coupland Cormack for Precinct Properties, for the foyer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 55 Molesworth Street, Te Whanganui a Tara.
Within this civic space, the work establishes a dialogue between architectural form and contemporary experience.
As Iti notes, “Distance and desire for connection are driving forces within my artistic practice.” The sculpture began with gestures traced into condensation on glass, marks that hover between presence and disappearance. In this commission those ephemeral drawings are translated into hand-finished steel, transforming breath and touch into materially enduring form.
Composed of undulating lines stacked like ripples, the work suggests wind, strata, tributaries and tectonic movement. The gestures stabilise in steel while retaining their energy, resonating with the geological and atmospheric conditions of Te Whanganui a Tara and introducing animation into the architectural clarity of the foyer.
The work reflects on the pūrākau of Whātaitai and Ngake, where longing and pursuit reshape land, and references the whakataukī He Auripo (The Rippling), reminding us that where water moves there is life. Through rhythm and repetition, Iti’s layered lines embody kaitiakitanga and the responsibility to sustain vitality within land and community.
Open to multiple readings as geological diagram, atmospheric drawing, cartographic trace or emotional gesture, the sculpture honours the stories embedded within this site while allowing new interpretations to ripple forward.
Architecture
Julian O’Neale
Installation Human Dynamo
Fabrication Gillies Metaltech
Architect and collaborator Mikhail Rodrick
Images 2, 3 & 10: Jason Mann Photography

Coupland Art

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