artist profile
Lisa Reihana
born
1964
lives and works
Auckland, New Zealand
education
BFA, Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland University, Auckland, New Zealand, 1987
about the artist
Throughout her artistic practice, Lisa Reihana pays homage to mythology, folklore, and the colorful tales and indigenous sensibilities that have come to shape culture and community in present-day New Zealand. Reihana preserves the power of kinship through installing friends and families as models in her digital theater, filled with settings heavily reminiscent of computer games, fantasy films, advertisements, and marketing from contemporary popular culture. The artist has participated in numerous shows, festivals, and fairs all over the world, at venues as diverse as the Singapore Art Museum in Singapore; the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts in Kaohsiung, Taiwan; the Asia Society and the Brooklyn Museum in New York, USA; and the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, Lithuania. In New Zealand, she has staged numerous solo shows as well, at the Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand in Wellington, the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth, the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, and others. She was awarded artist residencies at the Museum of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia; the Banff Centre in Banff, Canada; and the University of Waikato in Hamilton and Tauranga, New Zealand. A photographic work from her PELT series was also included in the international touring exhibition Roundabout.