With a background in curation and programming, Dr Zara Stanhope is focused on arts leadership that empowers public engagement with, and enables institutions and artists in realising, the critical and creative value of the visual arts. Her prior experience includes the roles of

• Ringatohu | Director of Cultural Experiences, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery | Len Lye Centre and Puke Ariki Museum & Libraries, Ngāmotu New Plymouth;

• Curatorial Manager Asian and Pacific Art, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane;

• Principal Curator and Head of Programmes, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland;

• Deputy Director and Senior Curator, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Naarm Melbourne;

• inaugural Director, Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka, Wellington;

• Assistant Director, Monash University Museum of Art, Naarm Melbourne;

• and being the lead curator for Dane Mitchell’s Post hoc at the 57th La Biennale di Venezia 2019.  

Sarah joined the Gallery in December 2018 after eight years in the curatorial team at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, with the last six years as Senior Curator Art. She has previously held curatorial positions at City Gallery Wellington and is a graduate of the prestigious De Appel Curatorial Programme in the Netherlands. She has a PhD in Curatorial Practice from Monash University, Melbourne. 

Sarah led major art projects at Te Papa, including the curatorial development of Ngā Toi | Arts Te Papa and she was the lead curator for Toi Art. Her other exhibitions have included

• Meridian Lines: Contemporary Art from New Zealand (2012),

• Warhol: Immortal (2013),

• Taimoana | Coastlines: Art in Aotearoa (2024–27) and

• Mark Adams: A Survey | He Kohinga Whakaahua (2025–26).

In addition to curatorial work, Sarah has been a member of Creative New Zealand’s NZ at Venice project team and Wellington City Council’s Public Art Panel and contributed essays and articles to peer-reviewed journals, international art magazines and museum publications. 

Email Sarah

Clare McIntosh joined the Gallery in 2011. She works cross-functionally with Gallery and Tātaki Auckland Unlimited teams to manage the concept development, editing and production of exhibition interpretation, print books for the trade, marketing and digital content. Prior to working at the Gallery, Clare held research, library, writing and publishing roles in private and public sectors, including central government, and lived for two years in Miyazaki, Japan as a participant in the JET Programme. 

Clare has a BSc in animal physiology, a BA (Hons, First Class) in English literature and an LLB, and was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand in 2020. She has edited and ghostwritten non-fiction titles on a wide range of subjects for Aotearoa New Zealand and international publishers and maintains an active interest in New Zealand literature through occasional literary reviewing. In her spare time, Clare supports the research and publishing of academics and writers working across diverse disciplines and edits reports for central government and not-for-profit organisations.

Email Clare

 

Joe Pihema (Ngāti Whātua) joined the Gallery at the end of 2023. He has a long-serving background as a tribal historian, te reo Māori expert and senior tikanga advisor to Ngāti Whātua. He has worked in Māori education for over 25 years and in Māori broadcasting and cultural and heritage sectors.

Joe was Deputy Cirector and curator of collections at the Tairāwhiti Museum from 1998 to 2004, and a member of Te Papa National Services Bicultural Committee. He is a former member of the Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Trust Board and Tupuna Maunga o Tāmaki Makaurau Authority and is a current member of the Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira Taumata-ā-Iwi governance board. 

Email Joe

Lincoln Putnam is a senior cultural sector leader passionate about creating meaningful, inclusive public experiences. He specialises in aligning operations, teams and spaces to support safe, engaging environments – from major exhibitions to everyday access. Lincoln has a strong track record leading cross-functional teams and managing complex projects across visitor services, facilities, health and safety, and emergency planning, with a focus on delivering people-centred and strategically aligned cultural experiences. 

Before joining the Gallery, Lincoln held leadership roles across media, non-profit and public sectors, where he developed expertise in operations management, strategic planning and team development. His experience spans large-scale event delivery, emergency response coordination, and fostering culturally safe environments in close partnership with Māori and Pacific colleagues.

Lincoln holds a Bachelor of Social Science with majors in political science and sociology from the University of Ottawa. An experienced international traveller and cultural enthusiast, he has lived and worked in several countries, enriching his inclusive and global perspective on public engagement. 

Email Lincoln

Susan joined Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in 2021, coming from the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra where she was director of development. She brings with her over 25 years of fundraising and arts management experience. Susan’s career prior to moving to Aotearoa New Zealand includes senior positions at several arts organisations in the United States, including the Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture in New York City, the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. 

Susan is a result oriented and mission driven non-profit executive leading the Gallery’s efforts to deepen and broaden its engagement with current and prospective donors locally, nationally and internationally. This includes fundraising responsibility for membership, individuals, corporate partners, trusts and foundations in support of the Gallery’s exhibitions, publications and education programmes for people of all ages. 

She has an undergraduate degree from Vassar College and a master’s degree in arts administration from Columbia University in New York City.

Email Susan

Cameron (Nofoali‘i, Sāmoa; Guangdong, China; Pālagi) is a curator and art writer who has worked in gallery, tertiary and publishing organisations. From 2019 to 2022 they were curator of Te Wai Ngutu Kākā Gallery at AUT (formerly ST Paul St Gallery). Since 2019 they have been working as a professional teaching fellow at Te Waka Tuhura Elam School of Fine Arts.  

Cameron has also worked as an editor for Art News Aotearoa and their writing has been published in several New Zealand and international magazines, newspapers and journals. Cameron has a Post-Graduate Diploma of Fine Arts with distinction from the University of Auckland (2019) and a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English and art history (2013).  

In their own words, Cameron is committed to ‘research and communication of concerns and trends within contemporary and historical art from Aotearoa New Zealand, the broader Pacific, and globally. I have been able to utilise this skillset to whakamana (empower and uplift) the voices of young Pacific communities and their creative practitioners, particularly within the MVPFAFF+ and Takatāpui space.’ Cameron has been a member of the Auckland Pride Board. 

Since joining the Gallery Cameron has co-curated:

• Aotearoa Contemporary (2024),

• Taimoana | Coastlines: Art in Aotearoa (2024–27)

• and Family Album: Queer Aotearoa (2026).

Email Cameron

Natasha has 20 years’ experience developing exhibitions of contemporary art. She writes for several contemporary arts journals and catalogues in the Asia Pacific region and co-edited Reading Room, a peer-reviewed journal of contemporary art published by the Gallery’s E H McCormick Research Library. She has diverse interests which have focused over this period on art in public spaces and the dissemination of the historic avant-garde. 

Selected recent and notable exhibitions include:

• Louise Bourgeois: In Private View (2025–26), 

• Aotearoa Contemporary (2024), 

• Groundswell: Avant Garde Auckland: 1971–79 (2018), 

• Shout Whisper Wail (2017), 

• Necessary Distraction: A Painting Show (2016), 

• A Puppet A Pauper A Pirate A Poet A Pawn & A King: From the Naomi Milgrom Art Collection (2013), 

• Made Active: The Chartwell Show (2012), 

• Last Ride in a Hot Air Balloon: the 4th Auckland Triennial (2010), 

• Mystic Truths (2007). 

Email Natasha

Passionate about New Zealand’s art of the long 19th-century, Jane wants to challenge the orthodox modernist view of it and to acknowledge the complex bicultural and transnational world colonial artists operated in, and the entangled histories that resulted. 

Jane joined the Gallery in October 2023, having completed her PhD ‘The Master of “Maoriland”: Louis John Steele, 1842–1918’ earlier in the year. It focuses on the English-born artist’s career in New Zealand from his arrival in 1886 until his death in 1918. Highly influential in his lifetime, but long disparaged as overly academic, she argues that Steele’s engagement with local subjects was groundbreaking, creating paintings that reveal much about the colonial world. 

Previously Associate Curator at the Gallery from 2002 to 2012, Jane’s key exhibitions include:

• Fall of Water, Fall of Light (2005),

• Masters of the Bitten Line (2006),

• Picturing History (2009) and

• Toi Aotearoa (2011).

Recent publications include:

• an article on The Arrival of the Maoris in New Zealand, 1899 in the Journal of New Zealand Studies,

• an article on Steele’s six portraits of Sir John Logan Campbell in BackStory (2021);

• an exegesis of Steele’s painting Spoils to the Victor, 1908, co-authored with Caroline Blythe, in Rape Culture, Gender Violence and Religion (2018),

• and two chapters in Gottfried Lindauer’s New Zealand: The Māori Portraits (2016).

Prior to starting at the Gallery, Jane undertook a Master of Arts in art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 2001 to 2002. 

Sophie has more than 20 years’ experience as a curator and educator in England and Australia and previously worked as a lecturer at the University of Leeds and the University of Manchester. She was Curator of International Art at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. As Senior Curator, International Art, Sophie works to develop and manage the Gallery’s historical and modern international art collection, including the Mackelvie Collection. 

Sophie’s past curatorial projects include

• Modern Britain (2007),

• Salvador Dalí (2009),

• Monet’s Garden (2013),

• Degas: A New Vision (2016),

• Van Gogh: The Seasons (2017),

• Enchanted Worlds: Hokusai, Hiroshige and the Art of Edo (2020),

• Manpower: Myths of Masculinity (2022–23),

• Heavenly Beings: Icons of the Christian Orthodox World (2022),

• Gothic Returns: Fuseli to Fomison (2023–25),

• Robertson Gift: Paths through Modernity (2024).

Her award-winning doctoral research was on artists in prison in the French Revolution. 

Nathan Pōhio (Waitaha, Kāti Mamoe, Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Kahungunu, Kāti Pakeha) was raised into a family dedicated to the cultural memory of their whānau at Tūāhiwi and Rāpaki. Nathan’s grandmother Elma Mary Pōhio (née Paipeta, Couch) instilled the value of art and art making into all her mokopuna. Nathan went on to attend the University of Canterbury School of Fine arts, gaining a BFA and an MFA in film. He served as a member of The Physics Room Board for almost 20 years and as chair for the last two years.

He is a founding member of Paemanu and co-vice president of Te Ūaka Lyttleton Museum. With the support of his Kāi Tahu whānau Henare Rakiihia Tau, Riki Te Mairaki Pitama Pitama and most recently Rānui Ngārimu ONZM, Nathan took on a cultural role for the Christchurch Art Gallery, arranging pōwhiri, mihi whakatau, karakia and waiata to uphold the presence of Kāi Tahu and the cultural integrity of Te Puna o Waiwhetū. 

An artist and a curator, Nathan worked at Te Puna o Waiwhetū Christchurch Art Gallery from 2002–21. In that capacity he was Exhibition Designer and then Assistant Curator. Nathan has curated and co-curated significant exhibitions including:

• Te Rua o Te Moko (2015–16),

• Ship Songs (2016–17),

• He Rau Maharataka Whenua: A Memory of Land (2016–18), Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania (2020–22), Ralph Hotere: Ātete (to Resist) (2021)

• and Te Puna Waiora: The Distinguished Weavers of Te Kahui Whiritoi (2021–22).

He was nominated for the Walters Prize 2016 and selected to exhibit artwork in Documenta14 (2017). 

Email Nathan

In 2020, Ane Tonga became the inaugural Curator, Pacific art at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Her research interests are focused on Pacific art, curatorial and lens-based practices, and Indigenous feminisms. She holds a Master of Arts in art history (First Class Honours), a Post-Graduate Diploma in Museums and Cultural Heritage (Distinction) both from the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the Elam School of Fine Arts. 
 
Ane has held leadership positions across a career spanning more than 15 years, including as Lead Exhibitions Curator at Rotorua Museum Te Whare Taonga o Te Arawa, and has delivered exhibition projects throughout Aotearoa. She is an experienced governance practitioner, serving as Deputy Chair of the Contemporary HUM Trust Board (2019–21) and on the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa (2021–24). 

Recent curatorial projects include:

• Edith Amituanai: Double Take (2019),
• Kereama Taepa: Transmission (2020),
• Declaration: A Pacific Feminist Agenda (2022),
• Kindred: A Leitī Chronicle (2022)
• and Darcell Apelu: Carry Me with You (2023). 

Email Ane