BOOKED OUT | Panel discussion - Seeing the self: women artists depict themselves
5.30 – 8pm

Event Details
Stimulated by the exhibitions Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: Art and Life in Modern Mexico and Robin White: Te Whanaketanga | Something is Happening Here, artists Dame Robin White, Claudia Kogachi and Yvonne Todd and Associate Professor Linda Tyler will kōrero the significance of self-portraiture as a subject for women artists. Looking at their own practices and the work of contemporary women artists from Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, the panellists will discuss the role of portraiture in representing a ‘self’ which is shaped by gender, sex, age, culture, environment and human experience.
Our panel chair, Linda Tyler, has taught art history at Canterbury, Victoria, Waikato and Auckland universities, and at Unitec and Otago Polytechnic, and been an art curator at Waikato Museum, the Hocken Library and Gus Fisher Gallery. Since 2018, she has been Convenor of Museums and Cultural Heritage in the School of Humanities where she teaches art history and curatorial studies. In her previous role at the University of Auckland, she ran the Gus Fisher Gallery and curated the University of Auckland’s art collection.
This free talk begins at 6pm, with a pay bar and nibbles from 7pm. Please note this event is R18
Please register your place now to avoid disappointment.
Image credits:
Robin White September 21, 2018 (Self-Portrait), 2018, on loan from a private collection
Claudia Kogachi Brokeback Mountain, courtesy of Jhana Miller Gallery
Yvonne Todd Fleur 2020 Courtesy the artist and Ivan Anthony Gallery
- Date
-
5.30 – 8pm
- Location
- Auditorium
- Cost
- Free - bookings essential
Explore Further

Dame Robin White
Dame Robin White is widely recognised as one the most important figures in contemporary New Zealand art. Across a remarkable 50-year career, her painting and printmaking has helped to shape a visual language for life in Aotearoa. White has exhibited widely in local and international exhibitions including the Sydney Biennale and the Asia-Pacific Triennial. In the 2003 Queen's Birthday Honours, she was appointed a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to painting and printmaking, and in 2009 she accepted redesignation as a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
Image courtesy Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki

Claudia Kogachi
Claudia Kogachi is a contemporary painter and textile artist. Born in 1995, Awaji-Shima, Japan, she lives in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Kogachi’s work leans into the personal – she often depicts herself and those around her to delve into various interpersonal dynamics and emotional states, navigating the often tricky side of relationships.
Recent exhibitions include There’s No I In Team (2021), The Dowse, Te Awakairangi Lower Hutt; New Artists Show (2020), Artspace Aotearoa, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, and the solo exhibition Obaachan during the lockdown, Wahiawā, Hawaiʻi (2021) at Te Tuhi, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. She won the New Zealand Painting and Printing Award in 2019 and completed the Karekare House Residency this year.
Image courtesy of Sam Hartnett

Yvonne Todd
Yvonne Todd is primarily known for her distinctive and precise, yet off-kilter lens-based work, in which photographic and visual tropes and conventions are enfolded into a parallel universe of obscurity and oddity. Her work speaks to associations and assumptions about familiarity, particularly in relation to ‘high-stakes' studio photography. Each portrait brings a set of psychological qualities that allude to human interactions.
Todd has been recognised by two major awards: an Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate Award (2019) and The Walters Prize (2002). Her work was showcased in the major retrospective Yvonne Todd: Creamy Psychology (2014–15) at City Gallery, Wellington which was a finalist in the 2015 Museums Aotearoa Awards. Other recent exhibitions include Garden Variety (2021) at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Choose Happiness (2021) at MAMA Albury.
Image: Yvonne Todd Fleur 2020 (detail) Courtesy the artist and Ivan Anthony Gallery