Visible Mysteries: Art, Space, and Landscape in Aotearoa – Rufus Knight and Ben Ashley in Conversation

For many people in Aotearoa New Zealand, landscape shapes how we experience art, space, and the places we live. Interior designer Rufus Knight and art appraiser and advisor Ben Ashley come together for a wide-ranging conversation about how landscape influences the way we view, design, and live with art.

Drawing on their lived experiences growing up in rural New Zealand, Rufus and Ben reflect on how an early relationship with land, light, and space continues to inform their creative and professional practices. For Rufus in particular, this connection has been central to his design approach and his long-standing engagement with art.

Using the work of Colin McCahon as a point of departure, the discussion considers how landscape-based narratives are shaped, framed, and carried into contemporary spaces. Rather than an art-historical lecture, this talk focuses on lived experience, how art informed by place is encountered in everyday environments, and what it can mean to live alongside works embedded with landscape and memory.

Ben Ashley | Moderator
Rufus Knight | Speaker 

Ben Ashley leads Aon’s Art & Collections valuation and risk advisory service across Asia Pacific and Aotearoa, working with private collectors, galleries, museums and cultural institutions. With 15 years’ experience in valuations, he provides appraisals for insurance, financial reporting and market assessment, and helps clients understand and manage environmental, security and market risks to their collections. Ben advises on practical strategies for preservation, protection and disaster resilience, structures insurance and indemnity solutions that support the long-term stewardship of significant works and collections, and works with galleries and museums on insurance placement and coverage.

Rufus Knight is the founder and director of Knight Associates, an interior design practice based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, working across cultural, commercial and residential projects in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally. At Victoria University’s School of Architecture and Design in Wellington he undertook undergraduate studies in Interior Architecture after which he held an Associate position at award-winning practice Fearon Hay Architects. Following working terms abroad in Europe, notably for Vincent Van Duysen Architects in Antwerp, he opened his own Auckland-based studio in 2016 and completed a Master of Interior Architecture at Victoria University in 2024. His work has been published internationally and, in 2015, he was awarded the Designers Institute of New Zealand’s highest honour for Spatial Design, the Purple Pin. Recent notable projects include curating part of the New Zealand national pavilion at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, prestigious private residential addresses across New Zealand, and collaborating with established global brands such as Aēsop, Minotti, Les Mills, and Fisher & Paykel.

Let’s Talk Art presented by Aon, brings together 30 artists, curators, designers, and collectors for 10 compelling talks over three days.

Entry to Let’s Talk Art is on a first come, first serve basis. There is no RSVP.

A valid ticket to the Aotearoa Art Fair 2026 is required for entry to this talk. Buy tickets online.