ZENA ELLIOTT

Early years and background

Raised in the Bay of Plenty and Waikato regions, Elliott has long drawn on whakapapa and kōrero tuku iho as foundations for a practice that moves between customary knowledge and contemporary image-making. Elliott studied at Wintec School of Media Arts, later completing doctoral research at Auckland University of Technology focused on Indigenous engineering, ecologies and speculative futures within contemporary art. Now based in Kirikiriroa Hamilton, Elliott teaches and mentors across secondary and tertiary contexts, positioning art education as an integral part of their practice.

Zena Elliott Artworks

Zena Elliott’s artworks combine fluorescent colour, optical pattern and carved or cut surfaces to create vibrating fields of light and structure that speak to kōwhaiwhai, street art and digital culture. Across painting, sculptural installation and moving image, Elliott brings together Indigenous cosmologies, queer and takatāpui perspectives, and references to science fiction and gaming to imagine alternate Māori futurities.

Seminal works and developments

Since the mid-1990s Elliott has experimented with neon and glow-in-the-dark pigments, developing an abstract language of repeating motifs that riff on kōwhaiwhai, tukutuku and urban signage. Works such as the lithograph Frequency (2020), produced with Auckland Print Studio for Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, push this vocabulary into print, using layered geometric forms and saturated colour to create a sense of movement and sonic vibration.

Elliott’s sculptural and installation practice extends this interest in rhythm and repetition into three dimensions, often using chains, timber and industrial materials to explore power, protection and constraint. The award-winning painting featuring a chained rākau, which received the 2025 National Contemporary Art Award at Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, exemplifies Elliott’s focus on colonial histories, land, and the resilience of marginalised communities.

Moving-image works produced with CIRCUIT Artist Moving Image Aotearoa New Zealand bring together performance, sound and digital effects, situating Māori bodies within speculative spaces shaped by technology, ecology and architecture. These projects often incorporate original soundscapes, extending the artist’s exploration of “visual noise” into aural form and framing each work as an immersive environment rather than a single static image.

Select Public Commissions by Zena Elliott

• Light-based and painted installations for education and community contexts in Kirikiriroa Hamilton (various projects)

Select Awards and Accolades

• Winner, National Contemporary Art Award, Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, 2025
• McCahon House Parehuia Artist in Residence, 2026

Zena Elliott Exhibitions

Zena Elliott has been the subject of solo exhibitions and included in group exhibitions at galleries and museums across Aotearoa New Zealand. Below is a selection of important exhibitions.

Select solo exhibitions

• Whanonga Pono, Rotorua Arts Village, Rotorua, 2019
• Ripekanga/Intersections, Milford Galleries, Dunedin, 2017
• _Haukura/Neon Voice: Recent Works by Zena Elliot_t, Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, Hamilton, 2016

Select group exhibitions

• Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland, 2020–2021
• National Contemporary Art Award exhibition, Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, Hamilton, 2025
• Moving-image programmes with CIRCUIT Artist Moving Image Aotearoa New Zealand, various venues, 2010s–2020s

Zena Elliott FAQs

Ocula | 2026