Natalie Guy is a sculptor, working across the mediums of bronze, steel, wood, glass, and plastics. She has a particular interest in the legacy of mid-century modernism and how our memories of the stylistic cues inherent in architecture, art, and objects from that era can be engaged and defamiliarised through translation into new sculptural objects. As a female artist based in Aotearoa, addressing international modernism through a glocalised lens, she questions and confronts the iconic nature of modernism by presenting work which questions the legacy while acknowledging her relationship to her urban surrounds. Following in the feminist literary footsteps of the the écriture feminine movement of the 1970’s which aimed to re-capture text as female self-expression, she rewrites modernist source anew.

Influences include the modernist architect Jane Drew, theorist Isabelle Graw’s thoughts on mutual influence, artist Hito Steryl’s eassy The Language of Things and Nicholas Bourriaud’s argument for the altermodern era in The Radicant.

Guy (Ngāpuhi, Ngāruahine) lives and works in Auckland, Aotearoa. Her work has been exhibited widely throughout Aotearoa in public and private galleries and exhibitions, including Tauranga Art Gallery, Te Tuhi Auckland, Scape Public Art Christchurch, and Sculpture on the Gulf Waiheke. In 2022 she completed a doctorate in Fine Arts at Elam School of Fine Arts, the University of Auckland. She was the recipient of the inaugural Asia NZ Foundation 2017 Residency to Varanasi India and in 2019 was resident at Sculpture Space, Utica, NYS. In 2014 she won the Woollahra Small Sculpture Award and in the same year won a Merit Award in The National Contemporary Award. Her 2020 work The Pool is a permanent public work in Christchurch. 

Contact
nguy.artist@gmail.com

Studio
Unit 6, 1 Honowai St
Kemeu, Auckland
New Zealand

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022 The Weight of the Door, Sumer, Tauranga
2022 Translation in the Language of Sculpture. Doctoral examination exhibition. Elam School of Fine Arts.
2020  The Window, Project Wall, Te Tuhi Auckland  
2019  Pool Party, Fox Jensen McCrory, Auckland
2018  Modern with a petit m, Hastings City Art Gallery Hawke's Bay, NZ
2018  Then and Then Again, Malcolm Smith Gallery Auckland
2016  Freestyle, Fox Jensen, Auckland
2015  Decoy, Fox Jensen, Auckland
2014  Forms in Echelon/Eight Eyes. JJ Morgan & Co, Auckland
2013  The New Memory. ELAM MFA Graduate show, The University of Auckland

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023    Blue Fluer, Natalie Guy & Sandra Bushby, Olga, Dunendin 
2023  Blue Fluer, Natalie Guy & Sandra Bushby, Depot, Auckland
2022  NATALIE GUY & GAVIN HIPKINS: CITY OF TOMORROW Tauranga Art Gallery. Curated by Stephen Cleland
2022 Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke Island, Auckland

2021  Groundwork Contemporary Sculpture, Cambridge, NZ
2021  Tai Tapu Sculpture Garden 8th Annual Exhibition, NZ

2019  Scape Season 2019. Christchurch. Curated by Emma Budgen
2019  Play_station Gallery. Wellington. Curated by Tyler Jackson
2019  Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke Island, Auckland

2017  Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke Island, Auckland

2015/16  Sculpture in the Gardens Auckland Botanic Gardens Auckland
2015  Elements of Freethinking, Pilot, Hamilton. Curated by Karl Bayly

2014  Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, Woollahra Council Chambers, Woollahra Sydney. Judged by Lisa Havilah, Justin Miller and Gretel Packer (Winner)
2014  National Contemporary Art Award, Waikato Museum, Hamilton, NZ. Curated by Simon Rees (Merit Award)
2014 Odd Peer Nexus, The Young, Mt Victoria, Wellington. Curated by James R. Ford
2014 The Instruction Manual, Lopdell House Gallery, New Lynn, Auckland, NZ. Curated by Andrew Clifford

2013  Recent Graduates Award 2013, Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland. Curated by Rebecca Boswell
2013  SHOUT, George Fraser Gallery, Elam School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland

2013 ELAM/ILAM The Delegate, Ilam Campus Gallery, University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, Christchurch. Curated by Libby Brookbanks

2012 ELAM/ILAM Quietly Confidental, Ilam Campus Gallery, University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, Christchurch. Curated by Victoria Wynne-Jones

2012 National Contemporary Art Award, Waikato Museum, Hamilton. Curated by Caterina Riva
2012 Gordon’s Walters Prize, SnakePit, Auckland, NZ
2012 Nga Mahi Toi, George Fraser Gallery, Elam School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland

2011 Phrases on Inverted Space, ELAM School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland
2011 Space Inversions, George Fraser Gallery, The University of Auckland

EDUCATION
2022. Doctor of Fine Arts, Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, NZ
2013 Master of Fine Arts (1st Class Honours), Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, NZ
2011 Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Arts, Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, NZ
2007 Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (Marketing), University of Auckland, NZ
1986 Diploma in Fine Art, Otago Polytechnic, Dunedin, NZ

AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES
Tai Tapu Sculpture Garden 10th Anniversary Award, 2021
Sculpture Space Residency - Utica, New York, USA - October - November 2019
Bundanon Trust Residency April, NSW, Australia 2018
Asia NZ Foundation Residency - Kriti Gallery, Varanasi India September - November 2017
Merit Award - National Contemporary Art Award, New Zealand 2014
Woollahra Small Sculpture Award, Australia, 2014

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Tai Tapu Sculpture Garden, New Zealand (installation 2022)
Christchurch City Council, New Zealand
Waikato Museum, Hamilton, New Zealand
The Wallace Arts Trust, Auckland, New Zealand
Woollahra Council, Sydney, Australia

PUBLICATIONS AND REVIEWS
Blue Fleur, 2023. Natalie Guy, Sandra Bushby, Joanna Osborne
Art New Zealand. "24th Annual Wallace Art Awards". Summer 156, 2015-16, p.40
___. "Exhibitions: The 29th Annual Wallace Art Awards".  Summer  176, 2020-21, p.39
___. "Providing Shelter NZ Sculpture on Shore". Autumn 145, 2013, p.26
___. "Sculpture Reinvigorated". Summer 2012, p.114
Art News NZ. "Island Mentality". Autumn 2022, p.120
___ . "Summer Sculpture". Winter 2019, p.98
Brookbanks, Libby.  “Elam-Ilam The Delegate”. Canterbury UP, 2013
___. “Shout”.  Auckland UP,  2013
Dornauf , Peter. “Contemporary Art in Hamilton”. Eye Contact review September, 2014
___. “2014 Wallace Awards in Morrinsville”. Eye Contact review March, 2015
Garrett, Rob ed.  “NZ Sculpture Onshore 2012”. 2012, p.43
Guy, Natalie. "In Residence". Art News NZ. Summer 2017
___ .“The New Memory”. MFA thesis, UoA, 2013.
___ ."The Urban Fabric of Sin City". Art News NZ. Autumn 2020, pp.94-96
___. “Translation in the Language of Sculpture”. DocFA thesis, UoA, 2022. https://hdl.handle.net/2292/59487
Hannah, Lois ed. “Elam Graduate Work 2011”. UoA, 2012, p.79
Hurrell. John. “8 Elam Graduates”. Eye Contact review August, 2013
___. “Decoy”. Eye Contact review May, 2015
Wynne-Jones, Victoria. “Elam-Ilam Quietly Confident”. Canterbury UP, 2012
Wallace Art Awards publications; 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020