CV

Born Christchurch, New Zealand

Master of Design (MDes) (Dist), Massey University
Postgraduate Diploma of Fine Arts (PGDipFA), University of Auckland
Bachelor of Science (BSc), University of Canterbury

Formerly Associate Professor, currently Honorary Research Fellow, Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Massey University, Wellington, NZ
 

Grants, Awards and Artist Residencies

Research Residency, School of Art and Media, University of Plymouth, UK, 2011.
MAPDA (Museums Australia book award) – winner, major exhibition catalogue category for An Expanding Subterra, 2011.
Massey University Research Grants, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2016.
Light Work Residency, Robert B. Menschel Media Center, Syracuse, NY, USA, 2004.
Project Grant (New Work, Visual Arts) Creative New Zealand, Arts Council of New Zealand, 2002.
CLUI Artist Residency, Wendover, USA, 2001.
Straumur International Artist Residency, Hafnarfjörđur, Iceland, 2000.
STA Study Award for full-time postgraduate study in photography, 1995.
Documentary Commissioning Grant, Waikato Museum of Art and History, 1994.
Direct Assistance Grant, QEII Arts Council of New Zealand, 1990.
 

Group Exhibitions (selected)

2021: Maritime-trace-exposure, collaborative exhibition by the artists’ group An Architecture of the Sea, Forrester Gallery, Oamaru.
2020: An Architecture of the Sea, collaborative exhibition in an immersive virtual environment, Ars Electronica Festival for Art, Technology & Society, Austria.
2019: New Works, Milford Galleries Queenstown.
2018: Strangers, Dunedin Public Art Gallery.
2017: NUCLEUS: Imagining Science (Noorderlicht International Photofestival 2017), Groningen, The Netherlands.
SCAPE Public Art Season 2017, Christchurch.
Interior Worlds, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui.
Where the River Bends, Ilam Campus Gallery, University of Canterbury, Christchurch.
2016: New Compendium, Milford Galleries Dunedin.
See What I Can See – Discovering New Zealand Photography, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui (also Suter Gallery, Nelson and Hastings City Art Gallery, 2017).
2015: New Zealand Photography Collected, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington.
2014: Flora Photographica Aotearoa, Bowen House Exhibition Space, Parliament, Wellington (and other venues, 2015).
2013: Seasoned: Contemporary Salt Prints, McNamara Gallery, Whanganui.
Freedom Farmers, Auckland Art Gallery.
Present History: A Selection of Photographs of New Zealand 1960s to the Present, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
Kainga, Whenua, Moana – Home, Land, and Sea in Ngā Toi Arts Te Papa, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington.
Available Light, McNamara Gallery, Whanganui (and other venues, to 2014).
2012: Underground: Photographs of Mining and Miners 1850 to the Present, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
Now and Then: Enduring and Developing Themes in Contemporary New Zealand Photography, Te Manawa Museum of Art, Science and History, Palmerston North (and other venues, to 2014).
Running on Pebbles, Snake Pit Gallery, Auckland.
2011: Chemical Traces, Scott Building, University of Plymouth, UK.
Placemakers, The Engine Room, Massey University, Wellington.
Scheimpflug Principle, projectspace B431, Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland.
2010: Community Garden, Michael Hirschfeld Gallery, City Gallery, Wellington.
Sightseeing, Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt (also Peninsula Arts Gallery, University of Plymouth, 2010; McNamara Gallery, Whanganui, and St Paul Street Gallery, AUT, Auckland, 2011).
We are here, and there, Hancock Gallery, City Gallery, Wellington.
Sheep – NZ Icons in Art, Pataka Museum of Arts and Cultures, Porirua.
2009: A serious kind of beauty: the heroic landscape, McNamara Gallery, Whanganui (also Aratoi: Wairarapa Museum of Art and History, 2010).
Recent: Work by Ten NZ Photographers, Tauranga Art Gallery.
Light: Black and Silver, Mahara Gallery, Waikanae.
Earth: Prix Pictet (exhibition video presentation), Passage de Retz, Paris, France (and other international venues).
AC/DC: The Art of Power, Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland.
2008: Land Wars, Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Auckland.
Close-up, Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland.
Toi Te Papa: Art of the Nation (2008 curation), Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington.
2007: New Zealand Legacy: Aotearoa Taonga-tuku-iho (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), The Art House, Singapore.
Manapouri: Art, Power, Protest, National Library Gallery, Wellington.
Collection in Focus, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui.
The Long View, McNamara Gallery, Whanganui.
Southern View: Photographs of New Zealand’s culture, heritage and landscape (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), Central Plaza, Hong Kong.
2006: Picturing Eden, International Museum of Photography and Film/George Eastman House, Rochester, USA (also University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa, USA, and Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, USA, 2007; Munson-Williams-Procter Arts Institute, Utica, NY, USA, and The Grace Museum, Abilene, Texas, USA, 2008; Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, USA, and Herbert Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA, 2009).
Perpetual Verdure, Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland.
2005: Pacific Light, Pataka Museum of Arts and Cultures, Porirua.
Solstice, Matakana Pictures, Matakana.
2004: Prospect 2004: New Art New Zealand, City Gallery, Wellington.
Toi Te Papa: Art of the Nation, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington.
2003: Is As, Landscape as Metaphor, Milford Galleries Dunedin.
Set Up, Michael Hirschfeld Gallery, City Gallery, Wellington.
The Caravan, McNamara Gallery, Whanganui (also Pataka Museum of Arts and Cultures, Porirua, and The Suter, Nelson).
2002: Victory over Death, Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington.
2001: Old Gates New Journeys, Michael Hirschfeld Gallery, City Gallery, Wellington.
Just Black and White, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui.
Landmarks, Te Wa/The Space, Whanganui.
2000: Not by Subject, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui.
1999: The Altered Landscape, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, USA (also Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona, USA, and Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui, 2001; Norsk Museum for Fotografi, Norway, 2002; Yellowstone Art Museum, Montana, USA, 2003; Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver, Canada, and Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto, Canada, 2004; National Academy of Sciences Gallery, and the Keck Center of the National Academies, Washington DC, USA, 2005).
Sustainability: The Land Remains, Manawatu Art Gallery, Palmerston North (also Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui).
1997: Sum of its Parts, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui.
Automotive: Questioning the Car, Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt.
1995: Waikato Te Awa: The People and the River, Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton.
Ink and Silver (works from publication), Escalante Gallery, Auckland.
Currency, Contemporary Photographic Art, Auckland Institute and Museum.
1994: River Images Revisited, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui.
1993: Natures Limits, New Work Studio, Wellington.
1992: Big Green, Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt.
Pacific Traces, 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington.
Contemporary Update, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui.
1991: Exit, George Fraser Gallery, Auckland.
1990: Photoforum 90, NZ Centre of Photography, Wellington (also Blue Angel Gallery, Auckland).
United Photographic Award Exhibition, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui.
Now See Hear!, Wellington City Art Gallery.
History and its Theatre, Whanganui Regional Museum.
Readings from a Certain Landscape, 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington.
Acquisitions Review, Auckland Art Gallery.
1989: Two Photographers, McDougall Art Annex, Christchurch.
1988: New Works for the Collection, Manawatu Art Gallery, Palmerston North.
Regional Photographers, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui.
Acquisitions, Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton.
1984: Five Cameras, Wellington City Art Gallery.

 

One-Person Exhibitions

2020: Paired Topographics, Page Galleries, Wellington.
2017: The Glass Archive, Hocken Gallery, University of Otago, Dunedin.
2016: Beneath an Ancient Sea: Oamaru and the Glass Archive, Forrester Gallery, Oamaru.
2015: Underground: Subterranean Economies and Ecologies, Prichard Art Gallery, University of Idaho, Moscow, USA.
The Catchments, Milford Galleries Queenstown.
2012: Gone to Ground, including the collaborative project Hoxha’s Bunkers (text by David L. Pike, typography by Anna Brown), Humanities Center Gallery, California State University, Chico, USA.
Bio Borders, Pataka Museum of Arts and Cultures, Porirua.
2011: Torbay tī kōuka, McNamara Gallery, Whanganui.
An Expanding Subterra, American University Museum/Katzen Arts Center, Washington DC, USA.
2010: Wayne Barrar: An Expanding Subterra, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (also City Gallery, Wellington, 2011; and Rotorua Museum, 2012).
Contact Topographies, Milford Galleries Dunedin.
2006: The Machine Room, Milford Galleries Auckland.
2004: Selections from the Home Range, McNamara Gallery, Whanganui.
Inner Space, Milford Galleries Auckland.
Sightlines South, Milford Galleries Dunedin.
2003: Accumulating Histories, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui (also CLUI, Wendover, USA, 2005).
Parts Unknown, Milford Galleries Auckland.
2002: Straumur, McNamara Gallery, Whanganui.
2001: Wayne Barrar: Landscapes of Change, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, USA.
1997: An Immortal Double, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui (also Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, 1998; and Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton, 1999).
1995: Images from Shifting Nature, The Bath House Art and History Museum, Rotorua.
1992: Shifting Nature, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui (also 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington, 1993).
1991: Western US Landscapes, 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington.
1990: Mason Bay: A Natural Succession, 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington.
1989: Saltworks: The Processed Landscape, Sarjeant Gallery (also Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton; Manawatu Art Gallery, Palmerston North; Marlborough Arts Centre, Blenheim; and Lopdell House Gallery, Auckland, 1994).
1988: New Landscape Cibachrome Photographs, 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington.
1987: Landscape of Change, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui (also 33 1/3 Gallery, Wellington).

 

Work Held in the Following Public Collections

Auckland Art Gallery
Christchurch Art Gallery
Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt
Dunedin Public Art Gallery
George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, NY, USA
Light Work, Syracuse, NY, USA
Ministry for Culture and Heritage Collection, Wellington
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Collection, Wellington
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, USA
Real Art Charitable Trust Collection
Riddet Collection, Massey University, Palmerston North
Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui
Southland Museum and Art Gallery, Invercargill
State Services Commission Library Collection, Wellington
Te Manawa Museum of Art, Science and History, Palmerston North
University of Auckland Collection
Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton
Wellington City Council Art Collection

Work also held in private and corporate collections in New Zealand and overseas.
 

Selected Conference and Public Presentations

2020: In the forest with the trees we made, interdisciplinary collaborative project featuring photographs by Mizuho Nishioka and Wayne Barrar, sound work by Blake Johnston and texts by Kerry Hines, curated by Tane Moleta. VR/AR exhibition presented in association with the CAADRIA 2020 virtual conference, Bangkok, Thailand.
2019: “Deposited Ecologies and Archive Histories”, research seminar presentation, Land Water and the Visual Arts Research Group, University of Plymouth, UK.
2015: “Delectable Deposits: Tracing the Oamaru Diatoms” – Finding New Zealand’s Scientific Heritage conference, Royal Society of New Zealand/Victoria University, Wellington.
“The Infusoria of Ichaboe” – Triggering Memory symposium, Massey University and Syracuse University, Wellington.
2014: “From Archive to Albumen”, Author’s Voice lecture series, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.
2011:  Co-organiser and presenter, The Ground Beneath Our Feet: Building, Living, and Thinking Underground colloquium, American University, Washington DC, USA.
“Trading Ecologies” – Art Association of Australia and New Zealand conference, Victoria University, Wellington.
2010: “Landscapes and Narratives of Change” – The Power of Landscape, NZILA conference, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington.
2009: “Disrupted Landscapes: Imaging Biosecurity” – Appreciating the Views: How We’re Looking at the Social and Visual Landscape, International Visual Sociology Association conference, University of Cumbria, Carlisle, UK.
2007: “Daniel Louis Mundy and the Public Works: Photography and the West Coast Road” – The Rise of New Zealand Photography 1839-1918, University of Otago, Dunedin.
2006: “The Machine Room: Visualising a Commodified Subterra” – Going Underground: Excavating the Subterranean City conference, Centre for Sustainable and Renewable Futures – Salford University/Durham University, Manchester, UK.
2005: “Reviewing Subterra” – The Poetics of Australian Space conference, University of Sydney/Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia.
Artist presentation – Te Whakatere: Navigating the Arts in the Pacific, Massey University, Palmerston North.
Artist presentation – Spark 05, Creative Industries Research Centre, Waikato Institute of Technology, Hamilton.

 

Selected Publications including images, authored or collaborative text, and critical reviews

Authored books and one-person exhibition catalogues
The Glass Archive, with essays by Kelley Wilder and Wayne Barrar; publication design by Anna Brown. Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Massey University (in association with Forrester Gallery), 2016.
Bio Borders. Exhibition catalogue, with essay by Wayne Barrar. Pataka Museum of Arts and Cultures, Porirua, 2012.
Torbay tī kōuka: A New Zealand tree in the English Riviera, with essays by Philip Simpson and Peter Simpson; publication design by Anna Brown. University of Plymouth Press, 2011.
Wayne Barrar: An Expanding Subterra, with essays by David L. Pike and Aaron Kreisler. Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 2010.
Accumulating Histories. Exhibition catalogue, with essay by Matthew Coolidge. Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui, 2003.
Straumur. Exhibition catalogue, with poems by Kerry Hines. McNamara Gallery, Whanganui, 2002.
Shifting Nature: Photographs by Wayne Barrar, with essay by Geoff Park. University of Otago Press, 2001.
An Immortal Double. Exhibition catalogue, with essay by Wayne Barrar. Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui, 1996.
Shifting Nature. Exhibition catalogue, with essays by Wayne Barrar and Ministry for the Environment. Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui, 1992.
Saltworks: The Processed Landscape. Exhibition catalogue, with essay by Joanna Paul. Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui, 1989.
Landscape of Change. Exhibition catalogue, with essay by Neil Pardington, Sarjeant Gallery, 1987.

Other publications
New Zealand Art at Te Papa, edited by Mark Stocker. Te Papa Press, 2018.
NUCLEUS: Imagining Science. Exhibition catalogue, Noorderlicht International Photofestival 2017. Stichting Aurora Borealis, 2017.
Wayne Barrar, “The Oamaru Diatomite: In and Out of the Archive”, Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 27 (1), 2017.
Wayne Barrar, “Fixed in Time: Photographs by Wayne Barrar” (portfolio and essay), Journal of Urgent Writing 1, 2016.
Wayne Barrar, “Rare Early Diatom Ambrotype Photographs by Amasa Mason Eaton (1841-1914),” essay in Newsletter of the Friends of the Farlow 66, Spring 2016 (Harvard University).
Kerry Hines and Wayne Barrar, “Scenery, Industry, Surface, and Scale,” essay responding to an exhibition of photographs by Carleton Watkins, Off the Wall 10, November 2015 (Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand).
Athol McCredie, New Zealand Photography Collected. Te Papa Press, 2015.
Gregory O’Brien, See What I Can See: New Zealand Photography for the Young and Curious. Auckland University Press, 2015.
David Pike, “The Bunkerization of Albania” (with images by Wayne Barrar), Cabinet 50, 2013.
Mark Bolland, “Cultural Cross-Pollination: Wayne Barrar’s Torbay ti kouka,” Art New Zealand 142, 2012.
Martin Patrick, “Imagined Landscapes and Subterranean Simulacra,” Afterimage 39 (6), 2012.
Julieanna Preston and Wayne Barrar, “Subterra: Interior Economies of Underground Space,” IDEA Journal 2011 (published 2012).
Now and Then: Enduring and Developing Themes in Contemporary New Zealand Photography. Exhibition catalogue. Te Manawa Museum of Art, Science and History, Palmerston North, 2012.
Wayne Barrar, “Daniel Louis Mundy and the public works: photography and the West Coast Road,” in Early New Zealand Photography: Images and Essays, edited by Angela Wanhalla and Erika Wolf, Otago University Press, 2011.
Sightseeing, edited by Hanna Scott and Ann Shelton. Rim Books, 2010.
Earth: Prix Pictet. teNeues, 2009.
Real Art Roadshow: The Book, edited by Fiona Campbell. Craig Potton Publishing, 2009.
Wayne Barrar, portfolio, Camera Austria 107, 2009.
Close-up. Exhibition catalogue. Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland, 2008.
Land Wars: The Reader, edited by Emma Bugden. Te Tuhi/ PROGRAM (Berlin), 2008.
David L. Pike, Metropolis on the Styx: The Underworlds of Modern Urban Culture, 1800-2001. Cornell University Press, 2007.
Wayne Barrar, “Reviewing Subterra,” Southerly 65 (3), 2005 (published 2006).
David Eggleton, Into the Light: A History of New Zealand Photography. Craig Potton Publishing, 2006.
Deborah Klochko, Picturing Eden. Steidl/GEH, 2006.
Geoff Park, Theatre Country: Essays on Landscape and Whenua. Victoria University Press, 2006.
Contemporary New Zealand Photographers, edited by Lara Strongman. Mountain View Press, 2005.
“Wayne Barrar,” portfolio, with essay by Janet Bayly, Contact Sheet: The Light Work Annual 132, 2005.
Gavin Hipkins, “Dugout: Wayne Barrar’s Subterra,” Art New Zealand 116, 2005.
The Caravan. Exhibition catalogue. McNamara Gallery in association with Pataka Museum of Arts and Cultures, 2002.
Wayne Barrar, “Terrain” (portfolio), Landfall 204, 2002.
Paul Thompson, New Zealand, A Century of Images. Te Papa Press, 1998.
Warwick Brown, Another 100 New Zealand Artists. Godwit, 1996.
Ink and Silver. Limited edition book. Photoforum, 1995.
Waikato Te Awa, The People and the River. Catalogue from the commissioned photographic documentary project. Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton, 1995.
William Main and John B. Turner, New Zealand Photography from the 1840s to the Present. Photoforum, 1993.
Exit. Exhibition catalogue. Artspace, Auckland, 1991.
United Photographic Award. Exhibition catalogue. Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui, 1990.
Joanna Paul, “Landscape as Text: The Literacy of Wayne Barrar,” in Now See Hear!, edited by Ian Wedde and Gregory Burke. Victoria University Press and Wellington City Art Gallery, 1990.
Derek Schulz, “A Delusive Light through a Bouncing Wall: Issues of Landscape and Powerlessness in the Photography of Wayne Barrar,” Art New Zealand 53, 1990.