Kirsten Roberts holds a BDes (Hons) 2009 and graduated with Distinction in 2014 with a practice-led MDes from Unitec, Auckland. Her project engaged with theoretical writings on interiority to inform the pursuit of perpetual spaces or places in the medium of paint.
Roberts’ paintings are held by the Arts House Trust, Deercourt Trust, Vela Family Trust and in private collections both in New Zealand and overseas.
Kirsten lives in Pt Chevalier, Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, Aotearoa NZ.
Practice
The manifestation of my paintings demonstrates a re-engineering of the familiar through technique, content, and context. A conscious understanding of the history of painting forges new connections and dialogues in the way subject and technique are combined. The re-presentation of figuration in the fabrication of these painted images holds us in a state of flux, an oscillation in our understandings of what portraiture was and what it is now. These figures are watchful and inert; bodies are made transparent or fragmented, rendering them elusive and insubstantial and at the same time, real.
Awards
2013 Supreme Winner New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award
2011 and 2012 Finalist Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Awards
2011 Finalist Wallace Art Awards
2010 Academic Scholarship for Masters Degree
2008 Winner Glaistor Ennor Art Award (Top Auckland Art Graduate)
2007 First Runner Up Wallace Art Awards
Shows
2024 Unpopular Mechanics, Toi o Wairaka, Group
2024 Ditto, SPA_CE Gallery, Group
2024 Small World, Benjamin Parsons Gallery, Group UK
2024 Idol, Idyll, Idle SPA_CE Gallery, Solo
2024 Let’s Go, Benjamin Parsons Gallery, Group, UK
2024 Auckland Art Fair
2023, Paint Like A Girl, The Tuesday Club, Art Week, Auckland, Group
2023 Penance, St Paul St Galleries, Joint
2022 Bottega Pradada Sanc + The Art Paper, Group, Auckland
2022 Firmament Sanc Gallery Auckland, Joint
2017 Identification The Vivian Gallery, Group
2016 Painting Prog. Wallace Arts Trust, Pah Homestead, Group
2015 Wallace Arts Award, Touring Show, Group
2014 Flower Show, The Vivian Gallery, Group
2014 Westpac Corporate Auckland, Solo
2013 The Small Show, The Vivian Gallery, Group
2013 Orexart GEAA Past Winners, Group
2013 The April Show, The Vivian Gallery, Group
2013 On On Onning, Snowwhite Gallery, Group
2013 Proof,, Papakura Art Gallery, Group
2008 Recent Graduate Show, Corbans Arts Estate, Group
2008 Wallace Arts Award, Touring Show, Group
2008 FYP, Wallace Arts Trust Gallery, Group
2007 Loggerhead, Studio 14, Solo
Publications
The Art Paper, 11 Sept, 2022 https://www.the-art-paper.com/journal/firmament-sanc-gallery
Stuff NZ, Ellipsis Collection, April 9, 2017
NZ House&Garden Oct 2015
Urbis Dec 2013