Louise Stevenson

About Me

Louise Stevenson is a multi-disciplinary artist born in Honiara, Solomon Islands, and based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa, New Zealand. Her projects range across drawing, photography, moving image, painting, book-making, and writing.

Interested in travel, fluid global situations and narratives, Louise responds to decolonial and trans-national contexts. She frequently explores shifting cultural and geopolitical relationships across different places and times, often drawing on her vibrant upbringing in the Solomon Islands, the diverse cultural environment of Aotearoa New Zealand, and a long-term connection to Budapest, Hungary.

Modernist architecture of the colonial era in the tropics is a particular research focus, informed by a family archive of photographic and film material. She has published papers on tropical modern architecture in the Pacific and presented at conferences in New Zealand and Australia.

Louise holds a Master's of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland and was a senior lecturer at the Manukau School of Visual Arts and a professional teaching fellow at the University of Auckland. She established the community-based arts business ArtSpark, sharing a vision for contemporary art-making. Currently, she is the Director of Te Toi Uku, Crown Lynn and Clayworks Museum in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland.

Essays & Press

  • Open the Borders, Expand the Mind, The Big Idea, Soap Box, 2022
  • On Louise Stevenson's 'Someplace Else', Chris Holdaway essay, Contemporary HUM, 2021
  • Someplace Else, a feature in HERE magazine, issue 6, 2021
  • Black Hibiscus, Radio New Zealand interview, Arts on Sunday, Pacific Issues correspondent Richard Pamatatau, 2008
  • Nothing but Something, First Draft, Sydney exhibition with Frances Hansen, essay by Grant Thompson, 2008
  • Nancy, group exhibition catalogue essay, Bronwyn Lloyd, 2003

Projects & Exhibitions

  • Unbound, solo exhibition, Skar Image Lab, 2022
  • Someplace Else: A Travel Archive, solo exhibition, Corbans Estate Arts Centre, 2022
  • Someplace Else, artist book published 2021, funded by Creative New Zealand
  • Someplace Else, the Project Wall, Te Tuhi, 2021
  • Transparencies, photography prize awarded by curator Ioana Gordon-Smith, Art West exhibition 2016
  • Sea, Sight, Site, film screening at Building Is/ Not Drawing, Adam Art Gallery, 2015
  • Images and Islands, Mangere Arts Centre, 2013
  • The National Solomon Islands Library, Auckland City Library, 2013
  • Black Hibiscus, Fresh Gallery, Otara, Auckland, 2008
  • Something from Nothing, exhibition with Frances Hansen, First Draft Gallery, Sydney, 2008

Writing

  • (Re)constructing Tropical Architecture in Solomon Islands: Conversations with my Father. Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, 2014
  • Communications Building: Tropical Modern Architecture from West Africa to the Pacific. Translation: Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand, vol. 31, 2014
  • Concrete Activities: Tropical Modern Buildings in the Pacific. Paper presented at the Open Hand Symposium, Auckland University of Technology, 2014.