Michael Dell was born on Banks Peninsula in the South Island of New Zealand. He started his art practice by making works on paper and later graduated from the School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury in 1994. While in his final year at art school he won the 1993 Cranleigh Barton National Drawing Award. Recently Dell won the 2019 Parkin Drawing Prize, which makes him one of the few artists to win both of this country’s premier drawing awards.
Dell is widely recognised for the particular surface quality of his paintings and has work in a number of public collections, including; Christchurch City Art Gallery, Auckland University, The Suter Gallery, TSB Wallace Arts Trust.
Dell’s work combines his interest in the relationship between modes of representation and abstraction, with nature and the landscape. His work is often described as having an ambivalent, everyday quality that is equally unremarkable in its simplicity and lack of narrative as it is absorbing in its stillness and otherness.
View Dell’s past solo exhibitions at Föenander Galleries
Michael Dell | Even Now
Michael Dell | Nature in my Mind
Michael Dell | Between Nature and Nothing
SELECTED AWARDS
Parkin Drawing Prize 2019 (Winner)
Parkin Drawing Prize 2017 (Merit)
Cranleigh Barton National Drawing Award 1993 (Winner)
Gallagher National Art Award, Hamilton 1990 (Winner)
Gallagher National Art Award, Hamilton 1988 (Winner)
Gallagher Group National Art Award, Hamilton 1985 (Merit)
Gallagher National Art Award, Hamilton 1984 (Winner)
Tauranga National Art Award 1983 (Merit)
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Christchurch City Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū
Waikato Museum of Art and History Te Whare Taonga o Waikato
The University of Auckland Art Collection Waipapa Taumata Rau
The Suter Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatū
The Kelliher Arts Trust Collection
Ballin Art Collection
Parkin Drawing Collection
James Wallace Arts Trust
Te Pūkenga Whanganui
The National Bank of New Zealand Art Collection
Tokyo Bank Collection, Japan
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Sunday Morning, Fōenander Galleries, Auckland 2022
Viewfinder Installation, Nelson 2021
2020 ‘Even Now’, Föenander Galleries, Auckland
Endless Days, The Suter Gallery, Nelson 2020
Michael Dell – Resent Work, Rowena Art Projects, Berlin (Online Presentation) 2020
2018 ‘Nature In My Mind’ nkb Gallery, Auckland
2018 ‘Before / Now’ Survey Show NMIT G-Space Gallery, Nelson
2016 ‘Between Nature And Nothing’ nkb Gallery, Auckland
2015 Moutere / New Work’ NFC Gallery, Nelson
2008’ Surface Nature’ Centre of Contemporary Art, Christchurch
2005 ‘In Between’ McPherson Gallery, Auckland
2005 ‘Paintings And works On Paper’ City Art Depot, Christchurch
2005 ‘In Between’ Peter Rae Gallery, Dunedin
2004 ‘Recent Work’ McPherson Gallery, Auckland
2002 ‘Recent Work’ Studio Works Gallery, Christchurch
1999 ‘Drawings’ Chartwell Gallery, Hamilton
1998 ‘Drawings’ The Drawings Gallery, Auckland
1996 ‘Drawings From The Inside’ Centre of Contemporary Art, Christchurch
1995 ‘ Arranging The Object’ Moray Gallery, Dunedin
1993 ‘Vignettes’ Solutions Gallery, Dunedin