Robin White: Tuituia | Something is Happening Here

A selection of works by Dame Robin White (Ngāti Awa, Pāhekā) is the latest touring exhibition from New Zealand’s National Museum, opening in Gore at the Eastern Southland Gallery in February 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.

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.

Developed and presented by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

Admission free.

Gallery Hours: Monday to Friday 10am – 4.30pm, Weekends and Public Holidays 1-4pm. Closed Good Friday.

Image Credits:

Robin White, Fish and chips, Maketu, 1975, oil on canvas, Collection of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki

For further information please contact:

Eastern Southland Gallery, 03 208 9907

Jim Geddes [email protected]

Marcella Geddes [email protected]

For more touring information, please contact: [email protected]