Dr. Fiona Pardington MNZM, Chevalier de l'Ordre Française des Arts et des Lettres (b. 1961), of Māori and Scottish descent (Kai Tahu, Kati Waewae, Ngāti Kahungunu, Clan Cameron of Erracht, MacDonald and O'Neill).
Her photography explores themes of memory, time, history, photographer and subject. By photographing taonga Māori (historical treasures), nature specimens and other museum artefacts, she revives their human and spiritual contexts, uniting postcolonial politics and reparative aesthetics.
Pardington has a Doctorate in Fine Arts from Auckland University and has received several laureates, fellowships, residencies, awards and grants. She was made a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by France in 2016 and a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2017. In 2015 she was honoured with a 30 year survey exhibition which toured museums in three New Zealand cities.
Her work has been included in many important international group exhibitions and biennials and is held in significant public collections including LACMA, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, and the National Gallery of Canada.
Her recent project Nabokov's Blues: The Charmed Circle, documents Vladimir Nabokov's lepidoptery archives held in European and American museums and was launched at the inaugural Honolulu Biennial in 2017.
Fiona is represented by Starkwhite, New Zealand.
Major exhibitions include: A Beautiful Hesitation, profiling thirty years, City Gallery Wellington 2015, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki and Christchurch Art Gallery 2016. International shows include Middle of Now|Here, Honolulu Biennial 2017; On the Origin of Art, MONA, 2017; lux et tenebris Momentum Worldwide, Berlin 2014; The Best of Times, The Worst of Times. Rebirth and Apocalypse in Contemporary Art, Ukraine Biennale Arsenale 2012; Ahua: A beautiful hesitation, 17th Biennale of Sydney, 2010. The New Zealand Government gifted a suite of her heitiki prints to the Musé du Quai Branly, 2008.