New Zealand Time:

menuicon
Aroha Luxury Tours - About New Zealand Art and Crafts - WharenuiAroha Luxury Tours - About New Zealand Art and Crafts - Paua shellAroha Luxury Tours - About New Zealand Art and Crafts - Pohutukawa

Art & Crafts in New Zealand

New Zealand artists, sculptors, carvers, jewellers and fashion designers have developed an international reputation, both for the quality of their work and for their use of the countries raw material.
  • The traditional Maori skills of bone and greenstone (Jade) carving, weaving and performance art remain strong.
  • The Paua shell has become a distinctive feature of New Zealand artwork. The country has 400 museums and art galleries, with one of the biggest projects in the world, the 'Te Papa' museum in Wellington.
  • Glass artists Ola Höglund and Marie Simberg-Höglund create art glass that has earned them worldwide praise. Their glass is internationally renowned and sought after by both public and private collectors worldwide and has been included in more than 40 international exhibitions. Each unique piece explore the fluid brilliance of the crystal clear glass and reflects the movement and beauty of the natural environment.
  • Reading is still listed as a favourite pastime, and the society has provided great inspiration for artists and writers
  • Katherine Mansfield is a qualified national icon. As an expatriate writing in London and reflecting European movements of thought, she had little connection with early New Zealand writing, which accorded her little recognition. Her work offers a rich account of a modern woman’s engagement with love, art, solitude, impending death and war.
  • Charles Frederick Goldie (1870-1947) is one of New Zealand's most controversial and best-known painters. He has been variously described as 'our greatest painter', an 'outdated, academic racist', and no more than a 'second-rate Lindauer'.
  • In the last 6 years New Zealand has won 44 Oscars at the Academy Awards. Some world famous movies were filmed in New Zealand; The Piano, Whale Rider, Vertical Limit, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, King Kong, The Worlds Fastest Indian, River Queen, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, plus many more projects in the pipeline.
  • Bollywood has also discovered this part of the world and is now producing a large amount of Indian films made in the South Island.
  • Karen Walker is a noted New Zealand fashion designer. Her clothes have been seen on many celebrities including Björk, Sienna Miller, M.I.A., Alexa Chung, Beth Ditto, Michael Haneke,Liv Tyler, Rihanna, Claire Danes, Jennifer Lopez and many more. Four pieces from one of Karen's original collections "Dust" appeared on Kate Winslet in the Michel Gondry film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Theodora Richards has also modelled in Karen Walker runway shows and posed in the March 2005 issue of Evening Standard UK magazine in Karen Walker outfits. Tyra Banks also recently wore a Karen walker dress on her talk show.
  • Rebecca Taylor is a New Zealand-born fashion designer based in New York, New York, United States. To Americans, she is probably the most famous New Zealand designer, with her label at US and European department stores. Her retail outlets include boutiques in Japan. Her company was reported in 2003 as having a US$12 million turnover.
  • New Zealander Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is one of the world's leading sopranos.
  • New Zealand has two orchestras, a national ballet company and a number of professional theatres.
  • The music of New Zealand is the expression of the culture of New Zealand. New Zealand's music is influenced by the culture of the indigenous Māori and immigrants from the Pacific region, though its musical origins lie predominantly in British colonial history, with contributions from Europe and America. As the nation grew and established its own culture, local artists combined these styles with local influences to create music that is distinctively New Zealand. One of New Zealand's most successful pop songs is 'How Bizarre' by OMC. It sold between three and four million records worldwide during 1995 and 2000, making it the biggest-selling New Zealand record of all time to date. New Zealand's size meant that many of the country's more prominent mainstream bands found their largest audiences in Australia. Of these, perhaps the most successful has been Split Enz, founded by Tim Finn and Phil Judd in the early 1970s. The addition of Tim's younger brother Neil after Judd's departure led to a more accessible style and several big hits. After the demise of Split Enz, Neil Finn went on to found the highly successful Crowded House
Contact Us
Call: 00 64 21 890 611
Email us

site map | legal information | login
evoSuite Tourism Marketing Software | Crafted by SquareCircle