Wayne Youle

Based in the North Canterbury town of Amberley, Youle (b.1974, Titahi Bay, Porirua; Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Whakaeke), Youle is a multimedia artist who combines a sophisticated design sensibility with incredible versatility and cheeky wit to explore is own bicultural identity and that of postcolonial Aotearoa New Zealand. Graduating from Wellington Polytechnic School of Design in 1999 with a Bachelor of Design (Typography), he has held the Rita Angus residency at Wellington Institute of Technology (2010), was Wellesley College's inaugural artist-in-residence (Wellington, 2011), the SCAPE/Artspace Christchurch Artist Residency at the Artspace Visual arts centre (Sydney, 2012), the Friends of Pataka Resident (Porirua, 2014) and artist in residence at McCahon House, Titirangi. His solo exhibition 9:54 – 3:49, solo exhibition featured in the 2015 Sydney Contemporary Art Fair.

Youle works in sculpture, printmaking, painting and installation, drawing on and subverting imagery from pop culture, kiwiana and traditional Māori visual culture to make compelling, appealing artistic critiques of race relations, identity, history and ethnicity. His art possesses a distinct playful irreverence, chutzpah and panache. His work is held in many significant private and public collections including Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, Wellington City Council, the Chartwell Collection at Auckland Art Gallery, and the James Wallace Arts Trust, and has been exhibited around New Zealand, and in high profile shows in Australia, the UK, Japan, the US and Mexico. His major solo show at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, look mum no hands and Strangely Familiar at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery, Wellington, opened in 2017 and a major solo show, AJAR at Toi Moroki COCA in 2018. He regularly exhibits with Suite Gallery (Wellington) and Michael Reid Gallery (Sydney, Berlin).

Dr Andrew Paul Wood