Alex Monteith

b. 1977, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand

Alex Monteith emigrated from Northern Ireland to New Zealand in 1986. She holds a Doctorate in Fine Arts from the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, where she is currently a Senior Lecturer. She works in moving image and performance, and is known for complex research, multi-year projects, and collaborative works. Her practice embraces themes of territory, politics, and physical boundaries as she focusses on the psychological and physical space of both individual and shared performative action.

Monteith rose to prominence in the late 1990s, when she was one of New Zealand's most prolific experimental practitioners of art projects incorporating performance, situations, installations, and film. Her technically sophisticated video installations have gained international traction, particularly in Germany where her work has recently been shown in two major public institutions. Her large-scale video and performance works often involve collaboration with technical or cultural specialists - ranging from Air Force Pilots, sheepdog trialists and racing motorcyclists to internationally recognised surfers. Monteith is a member of the collective Local Time (2008-current) along with artists and writers Jon Bywater, Danny Butt and Natalie Robertson.

Highlights of Monteith's career to date include Kā paroro o haumumu: Coastal Flows / Coastal Incursions at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2019), the major survey Accelerated Geographies at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (2010), a solo exhibition at the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, Germany (curated by Leonard Emmerling and Bernd Riess, 2012) and inclusion in Contact: Artists from Aotearoa/New Zealand at Frankfurter Kunstverein (2012). Monteith was a nominated finalist in the 2010 Walters Prize. In 2008, she was awarded an Arts Foundation of New Zealand New Generation Award, as the fine-arts recipient in a pan-arts biennial award (spanning fine arts, theatre, film and music). Further recent exhibitions include Sovereign Pacifics/Pacific Sovereigns (Artspace Aotearoa, Auckland, 2021); and CIRCUIT Distributor's Screening (Oberhausen Short Film Festival, Germany, 2020).

Gow Langsford Gallery has represented Alex Monteith since 2013.