BIO
Julia Holden is a painter and multidisciplinary artist based on Waiheke Island, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Her practice centres on collaborative portraiture — weaving painting with performance, sculpture and community engagement to explore the hidden dimensions of creative work: the labour, the materials, the human connections that make art possible. Her long-term projects I'm Your Fan (2014–ongoing) and The Artist (2024–ongoing) grew from participatory methods developed during her time in post-earthquake Ōtautahi Christchurch.
Holden's work has been exhibited at City Gallery Wellington, the New Zealand Portrait Gallery, and Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua, and is held in public and private collections across Australasia. Highlights include Her Indoors (2019-20) — an exhibition commemorating 125 years of women's suffrage in Aotearoa — and the Forsyth Barr Runner-Up Award (Pushing Clay 2024). The Artist series was developed through two Artist in Residencies, Dunedin School of Art in 2024 followed by Te Atamira, Queenstown, 2025, culminating in the recent exhibition of The Artist at Te Atamira. Holden is currently developing two new bodies of work: Sustenance, a still life series, and a portrait series celebrating the bonds between people and their animal companions, raising funds for WISCA, SPCA and Pet Refuge.
STATEMENT
I work primarily through painting and object-based arrangements, drawn to the symbolic language embedded in familiar things — the objects, gestures and rituals we use to express belief, devotion and care. My interest is in what these reveal about how we live, what we hold onto, and how we navigate uncertainty.
Much of my practice is collaborative and participatory. I am less interested in making work in isolation than in what happens when art becomes a site of exchange — between artist and subject, between community and history, between the ordinary and the contemplative. I resist spectacle and moral instruction. I'd rather open a question than answer one.
CV
JULIA HOLDEN
Waiheke Island, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand
New Zealand citizen | New Zealand and UK Passports
b. 1960
EDUCATION
2011 Master of Fine Arts by Research, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
2007 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, New Zealand
1991 New Zealand Certificate in Architectural Drafting, Wellington Polytechnic
ARTIST RESIDENCIES
2025 Artist in Residence, Te Atamira, Tāhuna Queenstown
2024 Artist in Residence, Dunedin School of Art, Dunedin
2024 Artist in Residence, SPCA Wellington Centre, Wellington
2019 Vermont Artist in Residence Award, Wallace Trust Art Awards — Pah Homestead, Auckland
2018 Artist in Residence, Tylee Cottage, Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui
AWARDS & GRANTS
2026 Finalist Perpetual Guardian Small Sculpture Prize, Waiheke Island
2025 William Akel Award, Molly Morpeth Canaday Awards, Whakatāne
2025 Zinni Douglas Award, Walker and Hall Waiheke Art Award
2024 Runner Up Award, Pushing Clay Awards, Refinery ArtSpace, Nelson
2024 Jan Warburton Trust Grant
2020 Finalist Adam Portraiture Award, New Zealand Portrait Gallery, Wellington
2021 People's Choice Award, Molly Morpeth Canaday Award, Whakatāne
2019 Creative New Zealand Suffrage Fund, for Her Indoors, Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui
2018 Shortlisted Finalist, BP Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK
2018 Outstanding Contribution to Heritage Award, Canterbury Heritage Awards, Christchurch
2016 Creative New Zealand Quick Response Grant, for Lyttelton Redux
2016 Christchurch City Council Community Arts Grant
2011–12 Finalist, Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, Sydney, Australia (two consecutive years)
2011 Finalist, Churchie National Emerging Art Award, Griffith University, Australia
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025 The Artist, Te Atamira, Tāhuna Queenstown
2025 Best in Show 2025, for Pet Refuge, ArtHaus Contemporary Gallery, Auckland
2024 The Artist, PG Gallery 192, Christchurch
2024 Best in Show 2024, for SPCA Wellington Centre, Parrot Dog, Wellington
2023 Best in Show, for WISCA, Gallery Anomalous, Waiheke Island
2022 A Day at The Beach, PG Gallery 192, Christchurch
2022 A Day at The Beach, Waiheke Community Art Gallery, Auckland
2019 Her Indoors, Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua, Whanganui
2019 Newly Formed, PG Gallery 192, Christchurch
2018 Performance Painting, New Zealand Portrait Gallery, Wellington (survey show)
2018 fanfiction, PG Gallery 192, Christchurch
2017 Lyttelton Redux, Canterbury Museum, Christchurch
2016 I'm Your Fan, Chambers241, Christchurch
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026 Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Waiheke Community Art Gallery, Waiheke Island
2025 Me: Artists Paint Themselves, New Zealand Portrait Gallery, Wellington
2024 Pushing Clay Awards, Refinery ArtSpace, Nelson
2024 Under the Table, Studio Ten81, Waiheke Island
2023 Atawhai Whenua, Waiheke Community Art Gallery, Auckland
2021 Every Artist, City Gallery Te Whare Toi, Wellington
2020 Adam Portraiture Award, New Zealand Portrait Gallery, Wellington
2018 To Otautahi With Love, public outdoor exhibition, Christchurch
2017 Shared Lines, Thistle Hall Gallery, Wellington
2012–13 Off the Strip New Genres Festival, Centre for Contemporary Art, Las Vegas, USA
COLLABORATIVE PORTRAITURE — SELECTED PUBLIC PERFORMANCES
2024 Self Portrait (Philip Woollaston, after Toss Woollaston), New Zealand Portrait Gallery, Wellington
2024 The Great Waiheke Nude (Audrey Baldwin), Waiheke Community Art Gallery, Auckland
2021 Self Portrait (Emily Hartley Skudder, after Liz Maw), Every Artist, City Gallery, Wellington
2021 Paul Ridley Smith (after David Hockney), Face to Face Portrait Festival, Wellington
2018 Marven Fuller (Jessica Kidd, after Yvonne Todd), Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui
2017 Draped Nude (Audrey Baldwin, after Henri Matisse), Auckland Art Gallery
2017 Caroline (Ruby Cumming, after Leo Bensemann), New Zealand Portrait Gallery, Wellington
2016 Leo (Sam Clague, after Rita Angus), The Arts Centre, Christchurch
2016 The Lyttelton Venus (Audrey Baldwin, after Velázquez), Lyttelton Arts Centre
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rebecca Fox, Art for the Artist’s Sake, Arts, Otago Daily Times, 4 December,2025
Julia Holden, The Artist: Collaborative Portraiture, Scope (Art & Design), no. 30 (2025): pp. 155–159
Edward Hanfling, Gil Docking, Michael Dunn, 250 Years of New Zealand Painting, Bateman Books, 2021
Grant Banbury, Paint and Projection: The Portraits of Julia Holden, Art New Zealand, No. 163, Spring 2017, pp. 80–83
Claire Voon, After an Earthquake Destroyed a Museum, an Artist Stepped in to Fill the Void, Hyperallergic, 16 February 2017
Warren Feeney, Julia Holden discusses her post-quakes works, The Press, Christchurch, 13 November 2016
RELATED ACTIVITIES
2025 The Power of Collaboration panel discussion with Dame Robin White, Dame Gaylene Preston and Chelsea Winstanley, Te Atamira Queenstown
Artist talk and presentation
2024 Dunedin School of Art Artist talk and presentation
2021 Public talk, Every Artist exhibition, City Gallery, Te Whare Toi, Wellington
Public talk, Face to Face. Portrait Festival, Wellington
Contributed artwork to The Friends of Christchurch Art Gallery Art Auction
2019 Portrait commission auction item for Women of SCAPE Art Auction
2018 Public talk, Julia Holden, Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua
2017 Public talk, ‘Lyttelton Redux: Concepts and Processes.’ Canterbury Museum
Contributed artwork to The Friends of Christchurch Art Gallery Art Auction
Contributed artwork to Women of SCAPE Art Auction
2016 Contributed artwork to The Friends of Christchurch Art Gallery Art Auction
Contributed artwork to Women of SCAPE Art Auction
2015 All works 2013–14 included in Canterbury University’s Permanent Earthquake Digital Archive
Relief Lecturer Ilam, Canterbury University School of Fine Arts, Christchurch
SCAPE 8 Tour Manager, Christchurch
2009 Committee Member, ‘Time, Transcendence Performance,’ Monash University,
OTHER PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
1994–2016 Storyboard and Concept Artist, New Zealand and Australian film and television productions