JAMES FRANCIS ROBINSON
BORN 1972 Christchurch
ADDRESS
11 grey street
Port chalmers 
Dunedin 
9023
PHONE
0212028628
email
Hemiking8@gmail.com
WEB
jamesrobinson.nz
​
BRIEF statement
​
a constantly evolving material language of pacific art
adaption and experimentation  with...
head heart and HANDS
My work is about healing and inner connection shared publicly as way of valueing the
human existential experience
‘putting the broken bits together again’
in fabulous and novel ways as surviver.

​

in dialog with the muse and zeitgeist of the times..as human 

 

creating in creation as creator.

 

Education
 
2000: Bachelor of Fine Arts, Otago School of Fine Arts  (Painting Major, Printmaking
Minor)
1996: Diploma in Art and Craft, Hungry Creek School of Art and Craft
1990: Foundation in Fine Art, Nelson Polytechnic
 
 
Artist Residencies
 
2018: Nonesuch Residency, Parsborro, Nova Scotia, Canada
Elerton Gallery Residency (Warwick Brown),  Mount Eden, Auckland

2015: Dunmoochin Artists Residency, Melbourne, Australia
Collaborative sonnets series with David Eggleton, ‘Anthropocene and asylum’ series
2013: William Hodges Fellowship, Southland Dunmoochin Foundation, Melbourne,
Australia
2012: Earthskin Art Residency, Muriwai, West Auckland
2009: Takt Kunstprojektraum Art Residency, East Berlin, Germany
2008: Tylee Cottage Residency, Whanganui, New Zealand International Studio
Curatorial Programme, New York, USA
2007: McCahon Art Residency, Titirangi, New Zealand
I.S.C.P (International Studio Curatorial Program, New York)
 
 
International Exhibitions
2023:selected works Lausanne art fair, Switzerland ( nomadic art gallery)
2023:”with face to the ground" selected works ,Nomadic gallery ,belgium
2022:Old Brain ( early works) with Nomadic Gallery,Ghent, Belgium
2019: Contempo annual publication inclusion, Dallas, Texas, USA
2017: Nonesuch Art of Paper Award, Parrsboro/Montreal, Nova Scotia, Canada
2012: Light and Space Gallery, Manila, Philippines ‘Anti-war Anti-orgasm’.
2009: Takt Kunstprojektraum Studio, group show, Berlin
         New York International Outsider Art Fair, New York, USA, January 9th-11th
         Fountain Art Fair, New York, USA (New Zealand Art Agent Stall)
2008: I.S.C.P studio, group show, New York, USA
2006: ***bluetenweiss anonymous drawing project, Berlin, Germany (group
         show) December 2006 
Ongoing contributions, including Art Basel, 2009
         Camden Gallery, London, United Kingdom (group show)
2003: New Contemporaries Gallery, Sydney, Australia, ‘Set Fire to Self—Drown’ (solo
show)
2002: Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne, Australia, ‘Unutterable
LoudObviousness’ (solo show)
 
 
Solo Regional Gallery Exhibitions
2023 Suter gallery curated summer group show “ ocean in the drop" old brain mural
-finalist 2023 Parkin national drawing prize “ Etu (bridge mirrors)”
2019 Inclusion in Parkin Drawing Award, Wellington, for ‘In and Out’ mandala cancas
pyramid, and subsequent collection in Wallace Trust Collection and display in Pah
Homestead Gallery, Auckland.
2018: Te Manawa Gallery–Palmerston North Public Gallery (6 month install), ‘Doors-
Hyper Objects of the Cthulucene’
2017: Ashburton Public Art Gallery, Ashburton, ‘Strange Attractor’
2016: Millennium Art Gallery, Blenheim, ‘Strange Attractor’

2014: Southland Museum and Art Gallery, Invercargill, ‘Paintings from the End of the
World’
2012: Otago Art School Gallery, Dunedin, ‘Rainbow Serpent – Psychic Skins’, mural
installation
         Aigantighe Art Museum, Timaru, ‘Age of Transformation’
2011: Glue Gallery, Dunedin, ‘Heaven and Earth’ (gold heart ritual womb), installation
and performance
2010: The Suter Art Gallery–Te Aratoi o Whakatu, Nelson, ‘Witness’ selected survey
2009: Waikato Contemporary Art Award finalist 2009
          Tauranga Public Gallery, ‘Surface Tension’
          Sarjeant Gallery–Te Whare O Rehua, Whanganui, ‘The Light’
07-08: Lopdell House Gallery, Waitakere City, ‘Ghost Guest Host: Loved Fuckt Killd
Eatn’
2007: Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Maker Centre of Contemporary Art, Mair Gallery,
Christchurch, ‘Giants Saints Monsters’
2006: Ashburton Art Gallery; God and Death Left Bank Gallery, Greymouth, ‘Rise’
2005: Te Manawa Gallery, Palmerston North; Rise Eastern Southland Gallery, Gore,
‘Rise’
2003: Left Bank Gallery, Greymouth, ‘Rugged Individual’
2000: Centre of Contemporary Art, Christchurch, ‘Large Works’
1999: Left Bank Gallery, Greymouth, ‘Vortex Boy—Living with Ghosts’
         Centre of Contemporary Art, Christchurch, ‘Works on Paper’
 
 
Selected Solo Dealer Gallery Exhibitions
2025 “Raw” major piece at Bergman gallery auckland as part of Ak art fair with Andy
leilso
2024 ’majic defends itself’
With jane tan Quiet dog gallery nelson
2023 “Witchs song" solo new series at Pg Gallery CHCH
2020-2019: EDGELAND series: mural and response shows to poems by David Eggleton
(New Zealand Poet Laureate)
Exhibitions and ongoing project at Port Chalmers studio PG GALLERY, August
Otago School of Art, ‘Art of the Anthropocene’, Dunedin, Sept 2020; Quiet Dog Gallery,
Nelson, October/November (with perfrmances by James Robinson and David Eggleton at
shows)
2018 :Elerton Gallery, Mount Eden, Auckland, ‘Alienated Blues Himalayan Miniatures’,
drawing show
Quiet Dog Gallery, Nelson, ‘Subduction’, works on  paper 
2017: PG Gallery, Christchurch, ‘Rock Action’
         Mint Gallery, Dunedin, ‘Strata’, with Mary McFarlane
2016: The Diversion Gallery, Picton, ‘Undertow’
          Milbank Gallery, Whanganui, paper work

           Zimmermann’s Gallery, Palmerston North, ‘Continuum’
2015: PG Gallery, Christchurch, ‘Anthropocene and Asylum’ (with six sonnets by
         David Eggleton)
2014: Wallace Gallery, Morrisonville, ‘Process Skins’
        Mint Gallery, Dunedin, ‘Exorcise’
        The Diversion Gallery, Picton, ‘Process Skins’
        Southland Museum and Art Gallery, Invercargill, ‘Paintings from the End of
         the World’
        Seed Gallery, Newmarket, Auckland, Selected works on paper
2013: Sanderson Gallery, Herne Bay, Auckland, ‘Astral Weeks’
        Eastern Southland Gallery, Gore, ‘Rainbow Serpent (Psychic skins)’
2012: PaperGraphica, Christchurch, ‘Resurrection’
2011: Paul Nache, Gisborne, ‘Deep See = No Drill Paper Works’
2010: Paul Nache, Gisborne, ‘Instinct and Spirit’
        Mark Hutchins Gallery, Wellington, ‘Other-cide’
2009: PaperGraphica, Christchurch, ‘Recent drawings from Nepal and Berlin’
        Bath Street Gallery, Auckland, ‘Hapu Contraction’
        Mark Hutchins Gallery, Wellington, ‘The Light’
2008: PaperGraphica, Christchurch, ‘New York: Works on Paper’
2007: Mark Hutchins Gallery, Wellington, ‘Qi Gong Miniatures’
        PaperGraphica, Christchurch, ‘Drawings: Works on Paper’
        Bath Street Gallery, Auckland, ‘Rise’
        Lyttleton Port Gallery, Christchurch
2006: Milford Gallery, Dunedin, ‘Ancient’
2005: Milford Gallery, Dunedin, ‘Start Up’
        Bath Street Gallery, Auckland, ‘Giants, Saints, Monsters’
2004: Temple Gallery, Dunedin, ‘Rise’
        Tatton Gallery, Nelson, ‘One Eyed Night’
        Arthouse Gallery, Christchurch, ‘Catalyst’
2003: Bath Street Gallery, Auckland, ‘New Works’
        Temple Gallery, Dunedin, ‘Set Fire to Self—Drown’
        Arthouse Gallery, Christchurch, ‘Fault line Graduate’
2002: Number Six, Lyttleton, Christchurch, ‘Small Works’
2002: Arthouse Gallery, Christchurch, ‘Like It Matters!’
2001: Arthouse Gallery, Christchurch, ‘Vulnerable: Ego Commodity’
        Satellite Gallery and Higher Trust Arts Advocacy Group, Dunedin
2000: Walrus Gallery, Wellington
1999: Moray Gallery, Dunedin, ‘Delirious’
 
 
Touring Group Exhibitions
 
2010: Real Art Roadshow (2008-2010 inclusive)

2007: Wallace Art Awards touring exhibition: Aotea Centre, Auckland; New
         Dowse Gallery, Lower Hutt, Wellington
2006: National Portrait Award touring exhibition, Shed 11, Wellington
2003: Wallace Art Awards touring exhibition: Aotea Centre, Auckland; New
         Dowse Gallery, Wellington.
         NCC Art Awards, ‘Second Thoughts’ touring exhibition.
2000: Wallace Art Awards touring exhibition: Aotea Centre, Auckland; New
         Dowse Gallery, Lower Hutt, Wellington.
 
 
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025: Academy art awards wellington finalist with
‘FOREVER SPLENDOUR’
2019: Parkin Drawing Prize finalist ‘In and Out’  (People’s choice award, collected in
Wallace Trust Gallery)
2017: Parkin Drawing Prize (Merit Award)
2016: PG Gallery, Christchurch
2014: The Diversion Gallery, Picton
2012: Design Room Gallery, Nelson,
2011: Auckland Art Fair, Mark Hutchins Gallery,
2010: Mark Hutchins Gallery, Wellington, ‘Southern Light’ (two man show with Jeffrey
Harris
2006: Milford Gallery, Dunedin, ‘Object’; Mark Hutchins Gallery, Wellington, with
Richard Lewer and Scott Kennedy
        Cleveland Living Arts Centre, Dunedin, Large Art
2005: SoCA Gallery, Christchurch, Dorian Gray Invitational 64zero3 Gallery,
Christchurch,
         ‘Between Warhead and Warhorse’, with Scott Flanagan
2002: Temple Gallery, Dunedin, with works by Colin McCahon and Ralph Hotere
2000: Blue Oyster Gallery, Dunedin, with ceramicist Jim Cooper
1999: SoCA Gallery, Christchurch, ‘Miniatures’
1999: Robert McDougal Art Annex, Christchurch, ‘Gruesome’
 
 
Selected Collections
 
Nova Arts Trust, London, United Kingdom
New Contemporaries, Sydney, Australia
Wallace Arts Trust, New Zealand
Hocken Collection, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
Christchurch Art Gallery–Te Puna O Waiwhetu Collection, Christchurch, New Zealand
Christchurch District Health Board Collection, New Zealand
Palmerston North Public Gallery–Te Manawa, New Zealand

Eastern Southland Gallery, Gore, New Zealand
Sarjeant Gallery Collection, Whanganui, New Zealand

  
 
Testimonials
 
Justin Paton, Curator of Contemporary Art, Dunedin Public Art Gallery:
‘... provoking, imploring, confessing ... he delivers a grungy retort to the clean-lined look
of much recent art inspired by the virtual space of the computer screen ... Should we feel
daunted by this chaos...or marvel at the vitality and moments of unexpected beauty to be
found within it?’
 
Marian Maguire, Artist & Gallerist, PG Gallery, April 2017:
'.....we come to the work from our own standpoint.....investigate them as an archaeologist
might.....for clues of earlier epochs.....pore over them in the mode of an anthropologist-
sifting through accumulated detritus to speculate on human civilisation. It's is a testament
of James Robinson's ability as an artist that these works project visual surety in the
abstract idiom.....'
 
Warwick Brown, Art Writer, New Zealand House & Garden, February 2017:
'.....His art flows like the tide, picking up debris, expunging old marks, meandering,
retreating, advancing again......Robinson is a force of nature and, like nature, his art is
capable of sublimity and terror, of tranquillity and turbulence....'
 
Cilla McQueen, Poet, 2014:
'.......Robinson's vocabulary of textural accident reflects the intense engagement of the
artist with the perennial questions of how to live, paint, be. Whether his works are read as
abstract metaphysical forms or as elemental mark-making, as chance arrangements or as
sophisticated explorations of technique, the subtle rhythms of his elements produce an
overall impression of natural elegance.....'
 
Chris Knox, in Look This Way: New Zealand Writers on New Zealand Artists:
‘... a great big flatulent belch of fresh air amongst all the tight-sphinctered, deodorised
boys and girls of the accepted national art world..... off-kilter and threatening but always
sumptuously, gloriously beautiful.’
 
John McDonald, art writer for the Sydney Morning Herald:
‘...a hyper-literate, passionate imagination ... draws, paints and writes with an intensity
that makes one think of Van Gogh, or perhaps Antonin Artaud ... a viral outbreak of signs
and symbols, a splattering of cosmic graffiti, built up layer upon layer ... visionary
landscapes, reminiscent of the teeming vistas of Bosch or Breugel.’

 
David Eggleton, New Zealand Listener, July 5th 2003:
‘beautiful, harsh and weirdly heroic ... Scorched, soaked and scavenged, Robinson’s
paintings are a testimony to modern life as a chapter of accidents, where menace mingles
with grief, and aggression with abjection.’
 
T. J. McNamara, New Zealand Herald, November 19th 2003:
‘The impressive achievement of these big canvases puts Robinson in the forefront of
New Zealand artists ... powerful terrains ... great force ... the intensely personal
expression of dark, turbulent emotion ... he has the potential to be one of our most
gripping painters.’
 
Dr. Jennifer ‘Ginger’ Knowlton, editor of Divide: Creative Responses to Contemporary
Social Questions, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA:
‘... subtle, poetic, meditative investigations of the nature of being within the
contemporary world........Response to Robinson’s work, here in the States, has been a rare
mixture of awe and warmth.’
 
Bridie Lonie, writer and Head of School of Art, Otago Polytechnic:
‘Painting’s inherent orderliness is both problem and salvation: in this sort of work, the
field is opened up, disorder created and order regained. ... a delightful drawer.’
 
Roger Boyce, Art New Zealand, Summer 2005 (117):
‘It is a visually stunning and accomplished journeyman work ... potentially formidable
gifts ...Robinson’s commitment to practice and ferocious level of production is admirable
...’
 
Dan Chappell, Art News New Zealand, Spring 2005:
‘... a new talent ... the embodiment of the driven artist ... The wide sweep and energetic
intensity of his recent work means he defies categorisation. ... Critics have mentioned
names like Schnabel, Kiefer and Basquiat—but ...it’s clear Robinson’s art is very much
his own.’
 
Mark Amery, Dominion Post, June 30th 2006:
‘... Robinson’s abstract works can create a bodily response, the impression that an
emotional vein has been located and opened within the compressed matter of all things'.
 
Robyn Peers, The Christchurch Press, October 17th 2007:
‘... enormously satisfying ... Basquiat, Kiefer, de Lautour, Peter Robinson; many artists
are suggested as influences ... but James Robinson is quite clearly his own artist and
.....has continued to develop his individual style.’
 
Margaret Duncan, The Christchurch Press, May 2004

‘... striking in its brutal physicality ...’
 
Peter Entwistle, Otago Daily Times, 2003:
‘... a new and vital force in the tradition of Colin McCahon, James K. Baxter and Tony
Fomison ....James Robinson's [work] is authentic. It shocks because it really hurts...’
 
Helen Watson White, Sunday Star Times, May 19th 2002:
‘I was transfixed ... by the extraordinarily positive force of its negative energy ... even the
most abstract [work] is alive.’
 
Warren Feeney, The Christchurch Press, February 1997:
‘... slovenly refreshing ... too loud, hazardous, and personal to ignore ... a reminder of
why artists take up their brushes in the first place...’