New Zealand artist Maurice Bennett crafted unique portraits of celebrities from pieces of toast.

Abstract art is showing new vitality. It can be Classical or Romantic, poised and precise, or energetic and expressionistic.

Space to Dream: Recent Art from South America includes art from the late 1960s to the present created by artists from eight different countries.

Kiwi artists are flocking to Australia this weekend for the opening of Vivid Sydney, where their work will be on show alongside artists from around the world.

Local photographer Julia Glover has experienced the excitement of Africa without leaving town.

An airbrushed "tattoo" on a five-year-old Tauranga boy has become an internet phenomenon that could bring smiles to the faces of children at Starship Hospital.

Creative New Zealand spent $650,000 to ensure the country is well-represented.

A few words with documentary film-maker Justin Webster.

Five years in the making, Seven Magic Mountains is the work of Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone, inspired by the natural "hoodoo" rock formations in southwestern America.

Stephie Key this week graduates from the exclusive Paris College of Art, and her dad will make a flying visit to be there for the big day.

In a sense, it all began with a question from a small boy: "If we're going to catch the bus into Auckland Library, please can we go to the art gallery, too?"

It is not all abstraction; there is still painting about people.

Auckland Art Fair will show the best in contemporary art from New Zealand and the wider Pacific.

A few words with art curator Beatriz Bustos Oyanedel.

It might more commonly be called the City of Sails, but to sociologist and historian Scott Hamilton Auckland is "a city of text", with multiple stories waiting to be told.

Auckland pianist Ben Fernandez and drummer Stephen Thomas have been roped in for the one-off performance.

The works, for the most part small statues and ceramics, are displayed on carpet mats on the floor.

It is astounding to think no art gallery in Australasia has ever generated a comprehensive exhibition of work from South America until now.

Fifteen seconds: according to a number of surveys, that's the amount of time the "average" viewer spends looking at a painting and accompanying text.

Much exciting contemporary art aims not to promote meaning or message but rather to engage the eye with new visual experience.

It used to be that art in hotels was deliberately inoffensive.

One of the most popular exhibitions at the Mairangi Arts Centre, on Auckland's North Shore, is now on.

Animated artistry narrows gap between art and science, writes Nick Atkinson.

Two exhibitions in prominent galleries immediately next to each other show works that are poles apart in concept and execution.

Artists delve in to expression embracing their interpretation of mankind.

Auckland artist Flox speaks to Dionne Christian about her children's book collaboration.

Ghislaine Kenyon tells Craig Sisterson about why she felt compelled to write a book about Sir Quentin Blake, the most renowned illustrator of our time.

The 400-year-old picture had been left for more than 150 years in a property in the outskirts of Toulouse.

Australian artist Scott Marsh has painted over his Kanye Loves Kanye mural for $100,000 after it created an international stir.