Glen Hayward
Glen Hayward (b. 1974, Auckland) graduated with a Doctorate from Elam in 2005. In 2003 he participated in the inaugural Sculpture on the Gulf, studied at Atelier Parekowhai 93-95 but fell in love prior with sculpture through the object put to use in the performances of John Lyall.
Art was and remains a place where it is not what it is. It being the English word for Id. This “it” or thingly quality of people and the world at large is what induces relationship, what artists dignify and ultimately what eludes us and in doing so tells us something about the world. It is the space in a vase, the gaps between timbers on a seat and the enlivening space under the table for a child at a dinner party. The miracle that the skin of a loved one contains your whole world.
He is represented by a dear friend Paul Nache.
Image credit Jim and Mary Barr.
Alex Monteith & Maree Sheehan
Alex Monteith is a multi-disciplinary artist, filmmaker, and Associate Professor whose practice intersects environmental activism, oceanic geographies, and contemporary art. A former Irish National Women’s Surfing Champion (2001), her work engages colonial impacts on ocean ecologies in Aotearoa; she has exhibited at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, MMK Frankfurt, Centre Pompidou, and the Asia Pacific Triennales at QAGOMA. Maree Sheehan (Ngāti Maniapoto, Waikato, Ngāti Tuwharetoa, Raukawa, Ngāti Tahu-Ngāti Whaoa) is a Māori composer, sound artist, and performer honoured as Māori Researcher of the Year by the Royal Society of New Zealand (2024). A passionate advocate for Mātauranga Māori, her work spans sound ecology, music composition, and recent exhibitions at QAGOMA and Haus Der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. For Sculpture on the Gulf 2027, Monteith and Sheehan present a new collaborative work.
Sean Hill
Sean Hill is a multidisciplinary artist of Kiwi/Samoan descent based in Ngamotu, Taranaki. He completed an Honours degree in Visual Arts at Auckland University in 2016. Sean’s practice focuses on conceptual exploration using movement, frequency, colour, texture, nature, and materials to express energy in a physical form, creating a visual language often through abstract representations.
Sean has exhibited overseas with Scott Lawrie Gallery (Scotland) and Alcaston Art Gallery (Naarm/Melbourne). His exhibitions include Synchrotopia in 2024 (solo) and 2026 (solo) at Govett-Brewster window space, and Energtopia in 2024 (solo). He received a CNZ emerging artist funding in 2024 and a Govett-Brewster artist residency in Tonga funded by CNZ in 2024. He exhibited at Govett-Brewster Art Gallery with Lalaga in 2022 and 2024, was a finalist for NZPPA Awards and Molly Morpeth Canaday Awards in 2025, and created a commissioned sculptural artwork for Te Tuhi Art Gallery, Flowergy, in 2025.
Stevei Houkāmau
Stevei Houkāmau is a full-time uku artist based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. Working with uku (clay) since 2011, her practice considers uku as both body and memory — a material that records touch, carries whakapapa, and anchors the relationships between tāngata, tīpuna, and whenua.
Her work has been exhibited widely across Aotearoa and internationally, and she has undertaken residencies in the United States alongside Indigenous art gatherings throughout the Pacific. Houkāmau has represented Aotearoa at FESTPAC in Guahan and exhibited at Munich Jewellery Week in 2024. In 2023 she received the Kiingi Tūheitia Portraiture Award and held a solo exhibition at Objectspace, Tāmaki Makaurau. She has been invited to the BACA Biennale in Québec, Canada, in 2026. 2027 marks her first inclusion in Sculpture on the Gulf.
Ioane Ioane & Martin Loire
Ioane Ioane (Auckland based, born 1962) and Martin Loire (Auckland based, born Buenos Aires, 1976) collaborate across sculpture, installation, poetry, and performance. Ioane’s three decades of mahi across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa draw on Samoan heritage and the generative energies of vā, the relational space of becoming. Loire, a bilingual Argentinian installation artist and poet whose books Mother Tongue and Siesta explore childhood’s emotional architectures, brings a lyrical countercurrent shaped by early fantasies and survival instincts.
Together, they weave material, language, and ritual into works that open connective spaces between cultures, memories, and the shifting thresholds of identity.
Fiona Jack
Fiona Jack is an artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. She teaches at the Elam School of Fine Arts, Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland. Fiona’s artistic practice ranges from large-scale public commissions to social projects formed through dialogue and research. She draws on recognizable visual and textual languages to examine the systems, social movements, and politics of representation within forms that hold collective memory.
Fiona has curated exhibitions including Portage Ceramic Awards 2025 at Te Uru Contemporary Gallery (2025) and Emory Douglas: Minister of Culture, Black Panther Party at Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland (2009) (with Andrew Clifford). Her writing has been published in Counterfutures, Femisphere, and several artist books. She holds an MFA from CalArts and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Westminster.
Emily Karaka, Reuben Kirkwood
Emily Karaka is a leading figure in contemporary Māori art and has been the recipient of The Tylee Cottage and McCahon House residencies, with her works held in most major art institutions in Aotearoa and in a number of significant private collections. She has an extensive career, being included in the landmark exhibition Te Waka Toi (1992), which opened in San Diego, California to coincide with the America’s Cup Race and toured throughout Canada; Five Māori Painters (2014), Auckland Art Gallery: Toi o Tāmaki; NIRIN, 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020); Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art (2021); solo survey exhibition Ka Awatea, A New Dawn, Sharjah Art Foundation UAE (2024); and Hawaiʻi Triennale Aloha Nō (2025).
For Sculpture on The Gulf 2027, Emily will collaborate with fellow Ngāi Tai Ki Tāmaki mandated mana whenua artist Reuben Kirkwood, whose architectural sculptural works adorn civic and commercial buildings throughout Auckland and whose carved gateways and pou are installed on many sites of significance and on islands in the Hauraki Gulf, including Rangitoto and Motutapu.
Virginia King
Virginia King was born in Kawakawa, Northland. She attended Wellington Polytechnic, then Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland and, while living in London in the 1970s, Chelsea Art School, Hammersmith. Sculpture became her preferred art form in the early 1980s.
Over the past four decades, King has created a portfolio of large-scale, site-specific works for public locations and private collectors. By magnifying and abstracting the scale of natural life forms, she draws attention to the beauty and vulnerability of our environment. Her vessel forms have evolved from symbols of exploration, migration, and nurturing to become symbols of life and survival.
An Antarctic Artist Fellowship in 1999 was a pivotal experience. A visit to the spectacular Lake Vanda strengthened her commitment to the microsphere, marine protozoa, and foraminifera. Enduring themes in her practice include ecology and survival and the delicate balance between sustainability and progress. King continues to create works in her Auckland and Waiheke Island studios.
Doyoung Koh
Doyoung Koh is a Kiwi–Korean sculptor whose practice explores the metaphysical and philosophical ideas of memory, nostalgia, and loss. Drawing on Obangsaek — a traditional Korean philosophy that uses colour to connect the five elements and directions of life — Koh creates sculptural works that investigate memory traces: the spaces where forgotten recollections re-emerge through visual and sensory cues.
Hemi Macgregor
Hemi Macgregor (b. 1975, Ngāti Rākaipaaka, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāi Tuhoe) is a highly respected artist and educator, who graduated from the prestigious Māori Visual Arts programme at Te Pūtahi-a-Toi, Massey University in Palmerston North, and is currently an Associate Professor with Whiti o Rehua School of Art at Massey University. Throughout his career, Hemi has contributed to the New Zealand arts arena with a particular focus on the field of Māori arts. Hemi is a former committee member for Te Atinga Māori Arts under Toi Māori and contributed to the establishment of the Ngaru Rua Rangatahi initiative, He was also a member of the Wellington Sculpture Trust Advisory Group and currently is working with local secondary schools in the Wellington region through the Ahurea Māori programme and Creatives in Schools initiative to provide Matauranga Māori art engagement.
Hemi’s artistic practice spans painting, sculpture, and installation, and collaboration with other artists is a central thread of his career. Exhibiting widely both nationally and internationally recent events include Waiora, Hastings City Art Gallery 2022 – 2023(painting and sculpture), Matarau, City Art Gallery Wellington with guest curator Shannon Te Ao 2021 – 2022 (painting and sculpture), Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art 2020 – 2021 (sculpture and collaborative installation with Saffronn Te Ratana and Ngataiharuru Taepa). From 2015 to 2021 Hemi was a member ofTe Kahui Toi, the Māori artist team that guided the creation of Te Rau Karamu Marae, at Massey Universities Wellington campus.
