Dr Elliot Collins
Ph.D. Visual Art
I am an artist and researcher who works across a range of media within the visual arts. I aspire to work with museums and art galleries, across Aotearoa, amongst people and objects who sit in the difficult places of history and memory that help us live better lives by revealing their stories and sharing their ‘knowledges’.
I gained a practice-led Ph.D. from AUT University in 2019, researching Memory Markers in the Landscape in Aotearoa New Zealand. I am interested in ideas of the present/absent texts within ‘memory markers’ in Aotearoa New Zealand as well as the motifs that represent a particular kind of meaning-making narrative. My practice references poetry and language, the naming of things, as well as memorials, memory, and time.
Memory markers is a phrase I conceived, to describe the range of memorials and holders of memory situated within the landscape that attempt to either personally or publicly hold, record, and impart memory to the future. These places, sites, or markers are always intentional and could be described as passive. For example, a school or a marae are ‘alive’ memory markers, while they too hold memory, they are in a state of constant flux and movement, making new memories or reviving old histories. Passive memory markers are meant to mark time for us and we move past them. Time is perhaps the most elusive or disquieting element in my work.
I continue to produce practice-led research with particular attention to history and presence as well as decolonial methods of a settler Pākehā practitioner, finding comfort or at least atonement by way of exile. Since graduating I have taken a greater interest in autoethnographic fieldwork and recorded intuition by way of the flâneur or wanderer. My practice aims to expand ways of recording and documenting silences in relationship to the environment and cultural narratives and expanded knowledges.
There is a large text-based presence in my work that is conceived slowly and involves ruthless editing, discarding, and rewriting; most, if not all is my own writing.
The poetry within these works does not serve to describe the visual elements but to illuminate a personal philosophy or considerations. The work can be sad, frustrating, joyful, and painful all at once.
Born in Tāmaki Makaurau in 1983, I currently live in Waitara in North Taranaki, with my wife and our dog, on the whenua of Te Ātiawa and continue to show nationally in public and private galleries. I presently work as a senior academic staff member at Te Kura Matatini o Taranaki - Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki as a tutor in the Creative Industries department.
Represented by Artfull - see artfull.co.nz for details and showing at Black Door Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau
SOLO SHOWS
TRAVEL LIGHT Atelier Gallery | Studio, Whakatu Nelson, 2023
THE WEIGHT OF WORDS Keepers Cottage, Albert Park, Auckland City, 2022
A MONUMENT TO NOW NorthArt, July 2020
I REMEMBER MOUNTAINS Te Tuhi Billboards, 2019-20
SOLASTAGLIA Tim Melville Gallery, 2019
WE MAY NEVER MEET AGAIN Bartley and Company Art, 2019
A MEMORY OF THE RIVER Nathan Homestead, Manurewa, 2018 Post Varanasi, India residency show
MEMEMORY MARKERS Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, 2018
SURVEYOR, PH. D GRADUATION SHOW St Paul Street Gallery, AUT, Auckland, 2017
THE RECKLESS PILGRIM Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, 2017
FROM TOURIST TO PILGRIM Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland 2016
THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY Tauranga Art Gallery, Tauranga 2016
WINDOWS Bartley and Company Art, Wellington, 2015
IN RUINS Y & R Gallery, Auckland, NZ 2014
THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, NZ 2013
ODYSSEUS Corban Estate Art Centre, Auckland, NZ 2013
FOLLOW ME Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, NZ 2013
SONDER Bartley + Company Art, Wellington, NZ 2012
BY THE RIVER Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, NZ 2012
Post residency show from The Netherlands and France
VALDRADA Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, NZ 2011
WHAT I WANT AND WHAT I NEED Bartley + Company Art, Wellington, NZ 2010
THE FALL Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, NZ 2010
UNTITLED (GIVING THANKS) Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, NZ 2009
PINE Ledge Gallery, Hamilton, NZ 2009
INSIDE PAINTING OUTSIDE WORLD Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland NZ 2008
ABSENCE Physics Room Kiosk, Christchurch, NZ 2007
GROUP SHOWS
ILT MURIKIHU ART AWARDS 2024 Finalist - He Waka Tuia, Invercargill, 2024
I AM NOT A ROBOT Alpharetta Arts Center, Georgia, USA, 2024
EIGHT Lysaght Watt Gallery, Te Hawera, 2024
MOLLY MORPETH CANADAY ART AWARDS 2024 Winner - Major Prize, Whakatane Library and Art Gallery 2024
YOUR’S TRULY X Percy Thomson Gallery, Stratford, 2023 - 24
3 HOD, Ōākura, Taranaki, 2023
ABROAD Percy Thomson Gallery, Stratford, 2023
LAND BODY TIME The Grey Place, Tāmaki Makaurau, 2022
TARANAKI REVIEW: IN MINIATURE 2022 Percy Thomson Gallery, Stratford, 2022
NATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ART AWARDS. Finalist, Waikato Art Museum, 2022
MARYANNE SHEARMAN & ELLIOT COLLINS HOD, Ōākura, Taranaki, 2022
BREAD AND BUTTER The Grey Place, Tamaki Makaurau, 2022
MOLLY MORPETH CANADAY AWARDS Finalist, Whakatane Library and Art Gallery, 2021
A VERY DIFFERENT WORLD Te Tuhi, Pakuranga, Tāmaki Makaurau, 2021
TE WHĀINGA – A CULTURE LAB ON CIVILITY Smithsonian APAC and Auckland Museum, https://tewhainga.com/
TE REO PĀKEHĀ Toi Poneke, Te Aro, Wellington, with Martin Awa Clarke Langdon, 2018
FREE SPEECH DEMO, Eden Terrace, Auckland, New Zealand, 2018
MOLLY MORPETH CANADAY AWARDS Finalist, Whakatane Library and Art Gallery 2017
THERE’S SOMETHING YOU’RE NOT TELLING ME St Pauls Street, Gallery Three, AUT, 2016, with Emily O’Hara
NATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ART AWARDS Finalist, Waikato Art Museum, Hamilton, 2016
SHAPESHIFTER – NZ SCULPTURE Lower Hutt, 2016
A CERTAIN KIND OF LIGHT Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, 2015
NATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ART AWARDS Finalist, Waikato Art Museum, Hamilton, 2015
PARKIN DRAWING PRIZE Finalist, NZ Academy of Fine Art, Wellington, 2015
FIVE PAINTERS Bartley and Company Art, Wellington 2014
NOW YOU SEE IT… Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland 2014
THREE COLOURS WHITE Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, NZ 2014
MAN MADE The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, NZ 2013
GANG BANG Method and Manners Gallery, Auckland, 2012
WALLACE ART AWARDS Finalist, Travelling Show, 2012
SEA OF FOG The Nathan Club, Britomart Auckland, 2012
FIVE YEARS Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, NZ, 2012
TOO LITTLE TOO LATE Snake Pit, Auckland, NZ, 2012
SOFT CUTS University of Waikato, NZ, 2012
PAPER JAMS Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland, NZ, 2012
A LONE A LAST A LOVED A LONG THE Duende, Rotterdam, NL, 2011
POST POST CAMAC, Marnay Sur Seine, France, 2011
IDEAS SPINNING OUTWARDS FOREVER Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, NZ 2011
GAME ON Hastings City Art Gallery, Hastings, NZ 2011
COLOUR AND LINE Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, NZ 2011
VAN DER VELDEN: OTIRA Christchurch Art Gallery, Christchurch, 2011
PAPER SCISSORS ROCK Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, NZ 2010
TXT: THE WRITTEN WORD IN NZ ART Te Manawa Gallery, Palmerston North, NZ, 2010
WALLACE ART AWARDS Finalist, Travelling Exhibition, NZ 2010
MELBOURNE ART FAIR Stand A52, Melbourne, AU 2010
READY TO ROLL City Gallery, Wellington, NZ 2010
WORDS WALKING Bartley + Company Art, Wellington, NZ 2010
SUNBLOCK Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, NZ, 2012
PAINT ON PAPER Rm Gallery, Auckland, 2009
CLOUD9 Christchurch Art Gallery, NZ, 2009
LIGHTEN UP Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, NZ 2009
NATIONAL DRAWING AWARD Artspace, Auckland NZ 2008
I DRAW SOLACE Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland NZ 2008
PRODUCTS AND SERVICES Rm 103, Auckland NZ 2007
LANDSCAPE / INSCAPE St Paul St Gallery, Auckland NZ 2006