Denys Watkins has worked as a figurative and abstract painter. In the 1980s his paintings critiqued the signs and symbols that described our experiences of the real world, considering and reconciling images from Western and indigenous cultures. He incorporates a variety of media including etching, screenprinting, watercolour, acrylic and oil painting to create strong imagery.

Sydney Parkinson (c.1745–71) was draughtsman to the botanist Sir Joseph Banks on James Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific in 1768. He was the author of 'A journal of a voyage to the South Seas, in His Majesty’s ship the Endeavour', published in 1773. Twelve of the 27 plates in this book relate to New Zealand. Parkinson died of dysentery in 1771, on the homeward voyage, and the book was published by his brother Stanfield.Parkinson’s portraits of Māori warriors were the first visual record of the physiognomy, tattoo patterning, dress and ornament of Māori to be seen in Europe.

Denys Watkins (1945 - ) was born in Wellington. From 1962-64 Watkins studied at the Wellington Polytechnic School of Design and then from 1968-70 he studied painting and print making at the Royal College of Art in London. Watkins has been exhibiting solo in New Zealand and international galleries since 1971 and his work can now be found in museums, universities and corporate collections throughout the country. From 1980 he was a lecturer at Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland University. In 2011 he left to pursue a full-time studio art practice