Latest fromVisual Arts

Watch NZ Herald: Oscar Pistorius talks about shooting his girlfriend
Oscar Pistorius has given his first television interview since killing Reeva Steenkamp saying he does doesn’t want to go to jail. Britons have been voting in a referendum on whether or not to stay in the European Union A New Zealander's mural of Prince has been unveiled in the musician's hometown of Chanhassen, Minnesota

T.J. McNamara: Beauty and the beasts
The superb retrospective show of photographer Fiona Pardington at Auckland Art Gallery, which finishes this weekend, is a series of essays.

Sydney: Enchanted evenings
Rachel Bache is awestruck by the lights, the music, the street food and the magic of Vivid Sydney.

Art Matters: Loft Series is set to be an exciting classical mash up
Imagine a 254-year-old musical instrument made of wood. It was built in London and probably had a passing acquaintance with Haydn, among others.

T. J. McNamara: Powerfully evocative media
The Auckland Art Gallery is showing a small exhibition of lithographs by Honore Daumier that acts as a lively adjunct to the current Auckland Festival of Photography.

Massive, headless Rihanna statue pops up in Berlin
A giant, headless statue of Rihanna has appeared as part of an art series which mixes celebrity culture with mythology.

Founder to auction roadshow gallery
The handbrake is set to be pulled on the Real Art Roadshow which has visited schools around NZ for 10 years - unless someone new grabs the wheel.

Kiwi artist, The Toastman, dies
New Zealand artist Maurice Bennett crafted unique portraits of celebrities from pieces of toast.

Vivid Sydney: Struck by lighting
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.

Art matters: Images offer vision of the world
Local photographer Julia Glover has experienced the excitement of Africa without leaving town.

Watch: Child's tattoo that isn't what you think
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.

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

A brief encounter with Justin Webster, film-maker
A few words with documentary film-maker Justin Webster.

Exhibition: A look at the Pacific in the digital age
What is it like to live, as many of us in the Southern Hemisphere do, with our eyes forever on a different part of the world?

A neon Stonehenge in the Nevada desert
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.

T. J. McNamara: A modern twist on folk art
It is not all abstraction; there is still painting about people.

Auckland Arts Fair: Lessons in fair play for all
Auckland Art Fair will show the best in contemporary art from New Zealand and the wider Pacific.

A brief encounter with Beatriz Bustos Oyanedel
A few words with art curator Beatriz Bustos Oyanedel.

Auckland Writers Festival: Suburban subjects
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.

Nick Atkinson: Man of words sharing poetry and all the jazz
Auckland pianist Ben Fernandez and drummer Stephen Thomas have been roped in for the one-off performance.

T. J. McNamara: Strange encounters on the mat
The works, for the most part small statues and ceramics, are displayed on carpet mats on the floor.

Watch: Ohope Beach wood carving artist
Harlem Shine from Ohope Beach carves logs washed ashore during storms. He can spend weeks/months carving a huge log only to have a storm wash it out to sea.

A tale of two Block Parties
There are two Block Parties happening in Auckland: which is the one for you?

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

An alternative assessment of real life
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.

Islands of colour mixed media and visual invention
Much exciting contemporary art aims not to promote meaning or message but rather to engage the eye with new visual experience.

Hotel decorating: The artful lodger
It used to be that art in hotels was deliberately inoffensive.