Pauline Rhodes

Pauline Rhodes
Born	1937 Christchurch, New Zealand
Education	Ilam School of Fine Arts, Wellington Polytechnic School of Design
Known for	Sculpture, photography, environmental art

Pauline Rhodes (born 1937) is a New Zealand artist. Rhodes is known for her artworks related to the landscape, which take two forms: outdoor works, in which she makes minimal sculptural interventions in the landscape, which exist only through her documentation, and sculptural installations in gallery spaces, which are conceptually related to the outdoor works.

Rhodes was born in 1937 in Christchurch, New Zealand. In 1959 she attended the University of Canterbury's School of Fine Arts part-time.

In 1960 she moved to Wellington, and took the Basic Studies Art Course at the Wellington Polytechnic School of Design. In 1961 she moved to Westport and lived there until 1965.

From 1965 to 1969 Rhodes lived and travelled in Africa and Europe. She lived in Nigeria for 18 months, where she worked on terracotta sculpture, pottery, and bronze casting with a traditional bronze caster. From she 1967 lived in Kent, England and travelled around England, Wales and Scotland, returning to New Zealand by way of Greece and India.

In 1971 Rhodes enrolled part-time again at the Canterbury University School of Fine Arts, and completed her Diploma in Fine Arts (Sculpture) in 1974. She attended Teachers College in 1976 and taught part-time briefly, but stopped to focus full-time on her art practice.

While at art school in the 1970s Rhodes began working outdoors, becoming one of New Zealand’s few environmental sculptors.

Rhodes’ work takes two main forms: sculptural installations in buildings, usually art galleries, using materials that have often been modified through exposure to the elements (such as paper stained with rusted metal), and ephemeral outdoor interventions, where contrasting coloured elements and forms (such as dyed cloth or coloured rods) are placed in the landscape, photographed by the artist, and then removed. While Rhodes has made outdoors works in New Zealand and Britain, most have taken place in Banks Peninsula, Canterbury, the area in which she lives.

Rhodes has developed her own terms for these two kinds of works, both of which she sees as being about space. ‘Extensums’ are usually outdoor works, which 'extend' a space in Rhodes' terms; ‘intensums’ are usually installations inside buildings, where space is intensifed.

Rhodes began training as a cross-country runner in 1978 and went on to compete regularly in marathon and cross-country events. In 1998 art historian Priscilla Pitts wrote:

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