Artist and author Bronwyn Holloway-Smith’s research interests span national identity, public art, contemporary landscape and still life, new technologies, and the power dynamics controlling knowledge and information—particularly in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand.

This suite of 10 pencil drawings on painted canvasses are a response to a popular media event—a fleet of icebergs sighted drifting off the coast of New Zealand’s South Island in November 2006. Holloway-Smith re-imagines these icebergs; recreating images sourced from the internet by covering household objects with draped fabrics, photographing them, digitally editing the images, and finally drawing those images on canvas. Titled Armada, Holloway-Smith’s icebergs are presented as a fleet of warships, imbuing these delicate pencil drawings with environmental, cultural critique.

Dr Bronwyn Holloway-Smith (born 1982) graduated from Massey University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, first class Honours in 2006 and a PhD Fine Arts in 2019. She was the Project Director of the E. Mervyn Taylor Mural Search & Recovery Project from 2015-17 and Teaching & Learning Projects Advisor, College of Creative Arts, Massey University from 2011-15. Holloway-Smith has exhibited widely and shown her work The Southern Cross Cable: A Tour, 2018 at City Gallery Wellington. She was a Finalist in the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2019, and Winner of the 2015 National Contemporary Art Award. Holloway-Smith lives and works in Wellington.