Scott Perkins: Aotearoa Art Fair 2026

Our Aotearoa Art Fair presentation will take visitors into the atmospheric worlds of Auckland-born, Eora/Sydney-based contemporary photographer Scott Perkins with the debut of a significant new body of work – his first since the widely acclaimed Uncertain Truths at Michael Reid Sydney in early 2025. With remarkable clarity, precision and technical bravura, Perkins captures natural environments that suggest a space beyond the purely visible. “There is more than one kind of alchemy at work, as we, the viewers, are drawn inexorably into the very essence of each frame,” writes Mary Kisler MNZM – author, art historian and longtime Senior Curator at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki – in the essay accompanying Perkins’s fair-bound series.

“Paradoxically, while we see the land, sea and sky through Perkins’ eye, they also become landscapes of the mind,” writes Kisler. “We lose sight of the quotidian ephemera that surrounds us, to seemingly stand alone in the presence of an ineffable, primordial beauty.” The otherworldly aura of Perkins’s nature scenes is heightened by the experience of accessing them via portal-like frames and softly glowing light-boxes that pull the viewer into a world of brooding romanticism and quietude. These works operate as much as sculptural objects as photographs, transforming the spaces they inhabit through considered lighting and fine materials, including handmade Japanese washi and metallic Hahnemühle papers.

For acquisition information prior to the art fair please contact hughholm@michaelreid.com.au