Richard Penn
Biography
Richard Penn is a South African-born interdisciplinary artist currently living and working in Auckland, New Zealand. Since relocating with his family in December 2020, he has continued to expand his rich and acclaimed artistic practice that spans painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, clay, and ceramics.
His work is rooted in a deep contemplation of origin, heritage, and memory—particularly through a personal lens informed by his Lithuanian-Jewish ancestry. Though he has never visited Lithuania, his artistic explorations often circle back to the imagery of his grandfather and ancestral village life, drawing lines between past and present, gesture and memory, personal and collective histories.
Richard Penn has exhibited both locally and internationally, garnering recognition for his exhibitions at Gallery AOP and Nirox Gallery in Johannesburg, Blank Projects and Everard Read/Circa Gallery in Cape Town, and The Origins Centre Museum at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is consistently represented at the Johannesburg and Cape Town Art Fairs.
In 2012, he represented South Africa at the Rybon International Artists’ Workshop in Tehran, Iran, and was awarded the Ampersand Fellowship to New York City in 2014. His work is held in numerous private, corporate, and academic collections both in South Africa and abroad.
Since settling in New Zealand, his practice has deepened through a number of notable residencies, including a three-month studio residency at Auckland Studio Potters (2021) and a month-long residency at Driving Creek Potteries in the Coromandel (2022). In the same year, he was awarded the Premier Award for the Portage Ceramics Prize at Te Uru Art Gallery in Titirangi.
In addition to his studio practice, Richard Penn is actively engaged in arts education and curation. He has taught sculpture at Otago Polytechnic and Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland, and currently curates exhibitions at Auckland Studio Potters.
