ROUND TABLE: ART TODAY

Let’s Talk Art, Viaduct Events Centre
Friday 19 April, 12PM – 12:45PM

Join us for an exciting round table discussion about art, where moderator Becky Hemus will lead a conversation with artists Fatu Feu’u, Michael Zavros, and Zac Langdon-Pole. Get inspired as they share their artistic journeys, what drives them, and how they see art evolving today. This event offers a unique chance to explore creativity and expression in a friendly and accessible way.

This talk is presented as part of Let’s Talk Art, the talks programme at the 2024 Aotearoa Art Fair, held from 18 – 21 April at the Viaduct Events Centre. To attend this talk, purchase a ticket to the Fair.

SPEAKERS

BECKY HEMUS

Becky Hemus is the Editorial Director at Fair Ground, an art magazine publishing company based in Aotearoa. She founded The Art Paper in 2020, an art and sometimes fashion magazine that encourages a new guard of ascendant creatives through nuanced writing and iconic portrait shoots. The magazine also hosts events in their office in Tāmaki Makaurau. In 2022 she came on board as the Editorial Director at Art News Aotearoa, New Zealand’s longest-serielled contemporary art magazine having published 199 issues since 1979. Previously, Becky worked with artists on large-scale public commissions and curatorial gallery projects for over a decade. She also co-founded May Fair Art Fair, an alternative digital art fair that showcased more than 40 independent artist and artist-run booths.

MICHAEL ZAVROS

Michael Zavros is a leading Australian artist, represented in Aotearoa New Zealand by STARKWHITE. He graduated from Queensland College of Art with a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 1996. His work has since been exhibited in major museums throughout Australia, New Zealand, Asia and Europe. In 2012 Michael Zavros was awarded the inaugural Bulgari Art Award through the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In 2010 he was awarded the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, the world’s richest prize for portraiture. He has won three major Australian drawing prizes: the 2002 Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award, the 2005 Robert Jacks Drawing Prize and the 2007 Kedumba Drawing Award, and has been a multiple Archibald Prize finalist. He was the recipient of the 2004 MCA Primavera Collex Art Award.

FATU FEU’U

Fatu Feu’u is a pivotal figure in global contemporary Pacific art, nurturing local artists and garnering international interest. In 2022, he received the Senior Pacific Artist Award from Creative New Zealand and collaborated with Specsavers to support the Fred Hollows Foundation. Feu’u was honored with the ICON Award by the NZ Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi and received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Auckland University in 2023. His art, inspired by Polynesian forms, blends tradition with contemporary styles, reflecting influences from Samoa, Aotearoa, and beyond. Central to his work is the concept of fa’asamoa, embodying the cultural unity and conventions of Samoan society. Fetu is represented by ARTIS Gallery in Aotearoa New Zealand.

ZAC LANGDON-POLE

Zac is a New Zealand artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau, represented in New Zealand by Michael Lett Gallery. His photographic and sculptural work of found and fabricated artefacts traverses a range of scales from the familial to the celestial, all connected by the artist’s interest in memory, translation, and the ordering of social and natural worlds. After gaining a BFA (Hons) from Elam School of Fine Arts, at the University of Auckland, in 2010, Langdon-Pole received a Meisterschüler from Frankfurt’s Städelschule, in 2015.