Dunedin School of Art

31/08/2026

Coming up Labour Weekend: The Rekindle Resourceful Crafting Ōtepoti Tour. See Event and website for details.

31/08/2026

This week's Thursday Public Seminar is by Octavia Cook who reflects on her collaborative survey exhibition, Cook & Company, shown at Objectspace, Auckland in 2023.

Octavia Cook is jewellery lecturer at DSA. She studied jewellery under Pauline Bern at Unitec, Auckland, graduating in 1999, and was part of the jewellery cooperative, Workshop 6, in Kingsland. The early part of her career as a contemporary artist yielded an extensive body of work under the guise of a fictional lux jewellery brand, Cook & Co. By 2012 she had closed the firm and moved to Dunedin. She has continued to exhibit locally and internationally, is represented by Anna Miles Gallery in Auckland and has jewellery in private and institutional collections globally.

This seminar can also be accessed online. Please email Ed Hanfling for more information [email protected]

Dunedin School of Art Public Seminar: Octavia Cook, Cook & Company

30/08/2026

Coming up. Faye Powell-Moore: Sacred, Invisible, Other. in the DSA Gallery.
EXHIBITION DATES : 7 - 11 September 2026
GALLERY HOURS: Mon - Thur 10am - 4pm
Fri* 12:30pm- 4pm -- *Closed Friday AM for exam
CLOSING EVENT: 5 - 7:00pm Friday 11 September

28/08/2026

Congratulations to all the entrants from the Secondary Schools in the Dunedin School of Art CELEBRATE Exhibition and Awards.

Overall Winner: Emma Ong, Otago Girls High School
Runner Up: Pyper Greer, Taieri College

Please see the website for all the School Awards and commendations.

Congratulations to all the entrants from the Secondary Schools in the Dunedin School of Art CELEBRATE Exhibition and Awards.

25/08/2026

Congratulations to Mark Bridgmount, Sculptural Section Winner of the OUSA-run Art Week competition with his work Toga Party.
Mark Bridgmount currently studies at the Polytech, completing his Level 6 Diploma in Art and Design, specialising in ceramics. Mark worked as an optometrist in South D, and when he retired 3 years ago he figured he’d better find something to do. He promptly took up ceramics.

Art Week is back and better than ever. Walking through the Link-turned-art-gallery, Ōtepoti students’ talent was on clear display. The OUSA-run Art Week competition had five sections: photography, illustration, sculpture, painting, and

24/08/2026

This week's Public Seminar, Dunedin School of Art, Thursday 27 August 2026
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm , Dunedin School of Art, Lecture Theatre P152
19 Riego Street, Dunedin.

Sarah McGaughran – Facing Away: The Shifting Landscape of the Picturesque

Drawing on research undertaken as this year’s Dunedin Public Art Gallery Ihupukutaka Kairauhī Curatorial Intern, Sarah McGaughran employs the Claude glass as a metaphor to address inherited ways of looking and investigate the impact of the picturesque ideal on art making in Aotearoa. This seminar examines the shifting attitudes of New Zealand artists towards land representation from the second half of the twentieth century to the present day. These artists’ practices trace an evolution away from purely pictorial landscape depictions toward treating the land as a site of experience, relation, mythology and embodied knowledge, with an awareness of the histories and contexts surrounding place.

Sarah McGaughran is an Ōtepoti-based emerging curator, artist and writer. Currently serving as the 2026 Dunedin Public Art Gallery Ihupukutaka Kairauhī Curatorial Intern, they previously founded and directed the local artist-run initiative Slant Art Project Space. Their multidisciplinary practice is informed by a diverse academic foundation, holding a BVA with First Class Honours from Dunedin School of Art, a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Otago and a Certificate in Māori and Indigenous Art from Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.

This seminar can also be accessed online. Please email Ed Hanfling for more information [email protected]

Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society Dunedin Public Art Gallery RDS Gallery

Image credit: Wayne Barrar, Twin tunnels, Manapouri Underground Power Station, New Zealand (2005). Colour pigment print. Collection of Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Gifted 2012 by the artist.

24/08/2026

Coming up around town: "Intertidal" Group Exhibition: Opening 4 September at Arc Brewery, Blue Skin Bay. Artists include Rowan Giselle, Manu Berry, Gary Pickford, Laire Purik and Vienna Spronken.

24/08/2026

Coming up around town: William Mathew Hodgkins Lecture 2026
Sunday 30 August, 2pm, Dunedin Public Art Gallery Auditorium

With thanks to: Visual Studies Research Network, Dunedin City of Literature and RDS Gallery.

This annual event is organised by the DPAG Society and commemorates the work of artist William Mathew Hodgkins.

The guest speaker for this year is Professor Deidre Brown (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu) at Waipapa Taumata Rau—University of Auckland. Deidre Brown is an award-winning author, highly regarded art historian and specialist on Māori architecture. Together with Ngarino Ellis and Jonathan Mane-Wheoki, she recently published the book "Toi Te Mana: An Indigenous History of Māori Art" (Auckland University Press, 2024; Chicago University Press, 2025) which aimed to cover a great breadth and diversity of toi Māori from its beginnings to present day. "Toi Te Mana" has won several national and international awards, including the global 2025 Apollo Book of the Year prize.

20/08/2026

Emerging Artist Scholarship for 2027. The Cent­ral Otago Art Soci­ety is offer­ing emer­ging artists with a con­nec­tion to Cent­ral Otago the chance to invest in their artistic devel­op­ment with a $5000 schol­ar­ship. Launched in 2025, its aim is to sup­port and nur­ture emer­ging tal­ent in the visual arts and provide fin­an­cial assist­ance for devel­op­ment. Last year’s inaug­ural recip­i­ent has gone on to study at Art School, exhib­ited in the Ida Val­ley Art Show and will be exhib­it­ing in this year’s Blos­som Fest­ival Art Exhib­i­tion.
The 2026 Central Otago Emerging Artist Scholarship applications are open 1 August – 6 September 2026.

If have any questions about the Emerging Artist Scholarship or your scholarship application, please contact Katie Robinson on 021445666 or email [email protected]

Supporting the Next Generation of Artists The Central Otago Emerging Artist Scholarship is our annual initiative to encourage and support fresh talent in the visual arts. Valued at $5,000, the scholarship is open to emerging artists with a strong connection to Central Otago who are in the early

19/08/2026

The Dunedin School of Art Secondary Schools Art Awards Exhibition is now open to the public during gallery hours.
GALLERY HOURS are Monday to Friday 10am – 4pm.
EXHIBITION DATES: 19 August to 27 August
There will be an Awards Evening 5pm - 6.30pm on Thursday 27 August with the Prizegiving at 5.30pm. See less