Exhibitions
The Millennium Public Art Gallery presents a programme of regularly changing, curated art exhibitions and events. The exhibitions and programmes feature New Zealand and international artists in both nationally touring and locally curated exhibitions. Many exhibitions are based on works in the Gallery's permanent collection. Community-focused exhibitions are developed in conjunction with other local events and organisations, and present the work of Marlborough artists, iwi and school children. These art projects take place both at the Gallery and in other locations.
Art displayed at the Gallery ranges from paintings, photography and sculpture to a variety of forms of applied arts and craft. Exhibitions are accompanied by public programmes such as artist and curator talks and educational workshops and school holiday events.
The Gallery is also a popular venue for arts sector, community and business events.
A not for profit organisation, governed by a Charitable Trust and professionally managed, the Gallery's operation is supported by an extensive network of volunteers. The Gallery is partly funded by the Marlborough District Council and to generate additional funds to support the Gallery's programmes; annual fundraising events are held and books, cards, local art and jewellery are available to purchase in the gallery shop.
Upcoming Exhibitions
Past Exhibitions
2021
Steven La Plante
Tools - Our Connection to the Garden
A new series of photographs by Steve La Plante, 'Tools - Our Connection to the Garden', features photographic portraits of well-used, historic garden tools belonging to gardeners from some of the Marlborough region's significant gardens.
9 October - 5 December 2021
Various
Thinking / Unfolding
This touring exhibition from the Print Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (PCANZ) sees printmakers from throughout Aotearoa New Zealand expand and explore the idea of the artist book by taking the concept of a book further, creating art objects inspired by the form and/or function of a book.
27 March - 2 May 2021
Joanna Dudson Scott
Waipunarangi
A series of large-scale landscape paintings by Marlborough artist Joanna Dudson Scott are informed by Matariki’s rising in 2020 – the emergence of the mid-winter star cluster signalling the Maori New Year - and historical narratives from the Marlborough Sounds.
9 February - 21 March 2021
2020
Elizabeth Thomson
Cellular Memory
Cellular Memory presents some of the most seductive and lyrical, yet often perplexing, works produced in For over three decades, Elizabeth Thomson’s art has engaged with issues to do with science, imagination, culture, and increasingly, what it means to live in the South Pacific region in the 21st century.
1 February - 8 March 2020
2019
2018
2017
Jim Tannock and Danny Knox
Digital Undergrowth and the Auction of Acceptance
The concerning issue of narcissistic voyeurism on the internet manifesting in real life is explored in a series of subtle and analytical works by Marlborough-based artists Jim Tannock and Danny Knox.
3 February - 19 March 2017
Nicolas Dillon
Observing Nature - the touring version
Based on Nicolas Dillon’s major 2015 survey exhibition, Observing Nature, the Millennium Public Art Gallery has developed a smaller, touring exhibition which will travel to public art galleries and museums in other regions after being shown here.
14 October - 10 December 2017
2016
Stanley Palmer
Shall Be My Bother: Gallipoli Remembered
In 2014 Stanley Palmer was one of a group of esteemed New Zealand and Australian artists, filmmakers and historians who travelled to the Gallipoli Peninsula to make work towards the exhibition entitled "Your Friend the Enemy".
7 May - 19 June 2016
2015
Nicolas Dillon
Observing Nature
From preparatory field sketches and early drawings to substantial paintings, Observing Nature, is a comprehensive survey of more than three decades of work by Nicolas Dillon, a leading New Zealand wildlife painter who lives and works in Marlborough.
25 October - 6 December 2015
2014
Various
Speed & Colour, British linocuts from the 1920s and 30s
Bringing the roaring 1920s and '30s to life in linocut prints Speed and Colour showcases 30 prints (1922 to 1936) from the Grosvenor School linocuts in the Te Papa collection that were gifted by Rex Nan Kivell in 1951.
10 May - 15 June 2014
2013
Kobi Bosshard
Objectspace Masters of Craft Series
The Millennium Art Gallery is privileged to be one of only three public art galleries to be showing the touring exhibition, Kobi Bosshard: An Exhibition from the Objectspace Masters of Craft Series, curated by Dr Damian Skinner, New Zealand's foremost contemporary jewellery commentator.
3 May - 16 June 2013
Mary Macpherson
Old New World
New Zealand society, seen in small towns throughout the North and South Islands, is the subject of Wellington-based photographer, Mary Macpherson’s Old New World photographic book and touring exhibition, developed by Lopdell House Gallery in Auckland.
23 March - 28 April 2013
2012
Various
Creative Fibre, National Exhibition
Creative Fibre is the New Zealand organisation for all fibre crafts. It brings together spinners, weavers, knitters, dyers, flax workers, felters, crocheters, free form fibre artists and all other people involved in the use of fibre.
24 March - 29 April 2012
2011
Pat Hanly, the Painter and his Protests
Blast!
A generation ago in 1987, New Zealand passed legislation to make the country nuclear free. To celebrate this wonderful achievement, writer, Trish Gribben, and Lopdell House Gallery, have published a children's book featuring Pat Hanly's anti-nuclear paintings and Gil Hanly's documentary photographs.
10 December 2011 - January 2012
Joanna Fieldes & Fran Maguire
Claim to Clay II
Maori weapons, tea cups, doilies and jugs are a few aspects of the second take on Claim to Clay - a joint exhibition by Auckland based painter Joanna Fieldes and Marlborough ceramic artist Fran Maguire that was originally presented at the Auckland Botanic Gardens Visitor Centre in 2010.
5 November - 4 December 2011
Various
Art Marlborough, Toi Wairau
Sourced from Marlborough collections, Art Marlborough - Toi Wairau runs for six weeks at Marlborough's public art gallery in the centre of Blenheim, and is a unique opportunity for locals and visitors to learn the stories of Marlborough's people, places and events through a wide range of art.
8 September - 30 October 2011
Graham Percy
The Imaginative Life and Times of Graham Percy
Developed in partnership between City Gallery Wellington, and Gus Fisher Gallery, The University of Auckland, this major touring exhibition showcases the charming and immensely entertaining artwork of ex-pat New Zealand illustrator, designer and typographer Graham Percy (1938-2008).
22 July - 28 August 2011
2010
Peter Bush
Hard on the Heels: Peter Bush Capturing the All Blacks
New Zealand's leading rugby photographer, Peter Bush, describes capturing an All Black game as "a total workout".
His powerful photographs are hard-won: the result of chasing the game up and down the field, while others set up their cameras and wait for the game to come to them.
17 July - 22 August 2010
2009
J.S. Parker
Plain Song
November 2009 saw the opening of a major retrospective exhibition on the work of one of New Zealand's important abstract painters, JS Parker, and the launch of a much-awaited book on his work by art historian and curator Dr Damian Skinner, at the Millennium Public Art Gallery in Blenheim.
20 November 2009 - 4 February 2010
Various
Garden Objets d'Art, Hunter's Garden Marlborough 2009 Auction
An annual exhibition of locally created art objects for the garden which will be auctioned at the Hunter's Garden Marlborough cocktail party on Saturday 10 October.
This year's theme is Garden Objets d'Art.
10 October - 8 November 2009
2008
Lucien Rizos
New Zealand Photographs 1979-1981
In 1979 Lucien Rizos set out to photographically document New Zealand.
Working in the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Rizos toured the country, carrying his camera and making images of the people and culture that he encountered along the way.
20 December 2008 - 1 February 2009
