About

Ruth Phipps is a New Zealand-based painter whose work explores darkness, perception, and the overlooked details of everyday architectural spaces. Through oil painting, she examines how light and shadow transform ordinary environments into sites of quiet sensory reflection. Attentive to surface, tone, and texture, her practice approaches painting as an embodied act of dwelling — where looking becomes a way of thinking.

Ruth’s recent series centres on architectural interiors — corners, thresholds, and stairwells — rendered in intimate, small-scale works. Through subtle shifts of light and obscured spatial cues, these paintings unsettle conventional perspectival viewing and encourage slow, attentive looking. Balancing precision with ambiguity, she renders light, texture, and depth in ways that heighten the viewer’s awareness of space.

Her work is held in the collections of The Arts House Trust, Auckland, and the Imago Mundi – Benetton Collection, Treviso.

Education

2024–2025 — Master of Fine Arts (First Class Honours), Whitecliffe College of Arts & Design, Auckland
2018 — Bachelor of Arts (History and Art History), University of Auckland — Dean’s List

Additional Training

2006–2012 — Painting studies, Artstation Toi Tu, Auckland (including Professional Practice and Painter’s Studio programmes with Matthew Browne and Kathryn Stevens)
2004 — Watercolour workshops with Barbara Templeton, Te Tuhi the Mark, Auckland

Awards

2016 — Peters Doig Marlborough Art Awards, Finalist

Solo Exhibitions

2023 — Visitations, ArtSelect Gallery, Auckland
2014 — Material Witness, Exhibitions Gallery of Fine Art, Auckland
2012 — Revealed, Lonely Dog Gallery, Auckland

Joint Exhibitions

2024 — When Shadows Fall, The Artist’s Room, Dunedin (with Rob Foote)
2015 — Christmas Show, Exhibitions Gallery of Fine Art, Wellington (with Judi Bagust)
2012 — Still, Railway Street Studios, Auckland (with Kathryn Carter)
2012 — Nature/Nurture, Three Painters in the Park, Huia Lodge, Cornwall Park, Auckland (with Fiona Cable and Helen Shale)

Selected Group Exhibitions

2025 — Studio to Wall III, Ponsonby, Auckland (curated group exhibition)
2024 — Studio to Wall, Railway Street Gallery and Studios, Auckland (curated)
2023 — To Sit Beside You, Railway Street Studios, Auckland (curated)
2022 — The Gift of Art, ArtSelect Gallery, Newmarket
2018 — Group Exhibition, Railway Street Studios, Auckland
2013 — Strangers Gallery, Exhibitions Gallery of Fine Art, Wellington (collaboration with Greg Johnson)
2013 — Christmas Show, Exhibitions Gallery of Fine Art, Wellington
2012 — Soul Mining, Railway Street Studios, Auckland

Selected Earlier Exhibitions

2016 — Baradene College Art Show, Auckland (invited artist)
2015 — Resident Artists’ Summer Show, Railway Street Studios, Auckland
2011 — Christmas Group Show, Exhibitions Gallery of Fine Art, Wellington
2011 — The Ellerslie Art Trail, Auckland (invited artist)
2011 — St Heliers Celebration of Art, Auckland (invited artist)

Collections

Imago Mundi Luciano Benetton Collection, Kiwi Consciousness, Treviso, Italy
The Arts House Trust (formerly The Wallace Arts Trust), Permanent Collection, Auckland
Baradene College of the Sacred Heart, Remuera, Auckland
Private collections in New Zealand, Australia, the United States, England and France

Gallery Representation

2019–2023 — ArtSelect Gallery, Newmarket, Auckland
2010–2019 — Exhibitions Gallery of Fine Art, Auckland and Wellington

Commissions

2016 — D & L Wilson, Auckland (private commission)
2014 — S. Buetow, Auckland (private commission)