The first few years after graduating from art school is a critical juncture in an artist’s career, especially in the current financial climate. Works in Progress is a new programme which seeks to bridge the gap between graduation and professional practice - a need identified in the community.

We have sought to work in partnership with Samoa House Library to deliver this initiative.

McCahon House is in the fortunate position through the Parehuia residency programme to have strong relationships with a cohort of established artists who are also skilled and experienced educators.  We have 20 years of experience offering development opportunities for visual artists, primarily through our residency programme and increasingly our education programme. Works in Progress is funded by the Hugo Charitable Trust.

For the pilot programme in 2025 we are pleased to announce Parehuia alumni Dan Arps as the mentor and the following artists as the participants:

Antje Tamae Barke
Antje Tamae Barke is a Tokyo born, Pakeha artist who works pre-dominantly with sculpture, installation, and lens-based media to create immersive exhibitions that explore the subjective experience of socio-political history’s and economies through objects and spaces. Utilising the indexicality of objects and materials, Barke employs subversive gestures and interventions to create dialogue between aesthetic histories and issues of class struggle through the experience of a site. Reconstructing and deconstructing material and research-based references in order to transport one site into a poetic reference of another.

Barke completed her MFA with first class honours in 2019 (graduated 2022) and a BFA Hons in 2015 from Elam School of Fine Arts.

Jimmy Ma’ia’i
Jimmy Ma’ia’i is of Samoan and Scottish Heritage. His work explores identity, culture, and the factors which influence the development of these concepts. “Through sculpture, I often utilise everyday, readymade, and found materials, using them as the medium to examine these personal and cultural narratives.”

Ma’ia’i graduated in 2023 with a Master in Creative Practice from Unitec.

Te Ara Minhinnick
Te Ara Minhinnick’s work often involves collaboration, large-scale sculpture, and site-specific installation. “My practice is grounded in whenua, oneone, and uku; thinking with and through material, not only in terms of weight and site, but also as a form of intergenerational knowledge. Over the past few years, I've been slowly building a body of work that moves across locations and contexts from Tamaki Makaurau, to Otautahi, and most recently in Poneke, with the long-term intention of exhibiting whenua, internationally. As the work expands materially and geographically, I'm focused on the considerations of protocols that frame the work; especially the outcome or encounter when whenua is taken outside its original rohe. The questions I'm sitting with are as much about material movement as they are about relational accountability.”

Minhinnick gained an MFA from Whitecliffe in 2021.

Nathan Wilson
Nathan Wilson (Pakeha) is an artist, writer, and performer from Tamaki Makaurau, whose practice is a tentative investigation into the relationship between art and ideology. After studying politics and history at the University of Auckland, Wilson gained his second bachelor's degree in Fine Art at Whitecliffe in 2023. Wilson’s interest in the visual arts is rooted in its connection to the political and the ideological, and his artistic output often takes the form of speculative or propositional critiques on this connection. Working in installation, sculpture, drawing and performance, Wilson’s research-based methodology influences the medium and form of his work.

After graduating from Whitecliffe, Wilson was one of the founding members of Pigeonhole, an artist’s collective with a focus on experimenting with strategies that sustainably enable artists to work and develop outside of the traditional post-graduate institutional/educational context.

Structure 

After the studio environment and critique sessions of art school, it can be challenging for emerging artists to continue to develop their own disciplines and create a community of peers that support their practice.  Both are critical for artist to be able to forge a sustainable career as a practicing artist.

Works In Progress aims to facilitate conversations around the work of emerging artists focused on developing their practice, both creatively and professionally. Drawing on the format of the critique or the studio visit, these conversations will be structured around each artist and can relate, for example, to a particular work or body of work and/or a professional skill they are wishing to develop. The content of the mentorship will differ depending on the artist’s needs.

Over an 8-month period (April – September 2025) four emerging artists will receive 3 x one-to-one mentoring sessions and participate in 2 x 3 hour group coaching sessions. 

Each artist will be paid a fee of $500 to assist allowing their participation in the programme. Artists will also be required to provide a report on their individual development.

The artists will have access to a gallery/gathering space in Samoa House Library for sessions or research time as required across the programme.

Nomination and Selection Process 
 
The four emerging artists have been selected by the mentor from a long list of 11 artists nominated by Auckland-based institutions as well as Samoa House Library.  
 
The selection criteria is open to a variety of visual arts/design/craft practice. Artists will have graduated during or after 2022 from tertiary providers in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and show a commitment to their practice. 

If the pilot proves a success, we will consider a public call for applications in 2026.


About Samoa House Library

Samoa House Library is an independent art library and alternative education platform, centrally located in the Samoa House building at 283 Karangahape Road. It is an artist-run and community-grown space that first emerged in response to the closures of specialist libraries at The University of Auckland.  It offers residencies and a welcoming inclusive environment for emerging artists.

About Dan Arps

Born 1976, Christchurch (NZ). Lives and works in Auckland (NZ).

Dan Arps’ installations, sculptures, and paintings respond to urban psycho-geography of cities. His work reflects on the way we inhabit places and the influence of architecture on the formation and regulation of subjectivities.

Arps gained a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Sculpture) from the School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury, Christchurch in 2000. He received a Master of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland in 2006 followed by a Doctor of Fine Arts in 2014. In 2010 he was awarded Aotearoa New Zealand’s premier contemporary art award, the Walter’s Prize, for his exhibition Explaining Things by international judge Vicente Todolí. Arps has exhibited extensively in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, as well as taking part in multiple international projects.

Selected recent solo exhibitions include: Studio Paranoia, Whangārei Art Museum (2024); Nirvana Park, Michael Lett 3 East St (2023); Parallel Universe, Neon Parc, Melbourne (2022); Sleepers, Robert Heald, Wellington (2021);  The New Brutal, Disneyland Paris, Melbourne (2021) and The Floral Maze, Michael Lett, Auckland (2021). Work by Arps has also been included in the group presentations: Walls to Live Beside, Rooms to Own: The Chartwell Show, Auckland Art Gallery Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (2022-2023); Dungeon and Meadow, Melbourne (2021) ALIVE INSIDE, Neon Parc, Melbourne (2021); Encapsulated, Caves, Melbourne (2021); Abject Failures, Hastings City Art Gallery (2018); Space Suit, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2018); Necessary Distraction: A painting show, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki (2015);  Local Knowledge, the Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt (2011) and the Sao Paolo Biennale (2004).

Currently Dan teaches at Elam School of Fine Arts and Whitecliffe College of Art and Design.