Couple of Dames team up in powerful new documentary on artist Robin White:
Former Mana College art teacher Dame Robin White is the subject of a new feature documentary by legendary filmmaker Dame Gaylene Preston, offering a deeply personal and political portrait of one of Aotearoa’s most celebrated artists.
Grace: A Prayer for Peace, now screening in cinemas following its New Zealand International Film Festival premiere, follows White’s journey through art, faith and activism, from her early years in Epsom to her deep connections with Kiribati, Japan and her ancestral home at Iramoko Marae in the Bay of Plenty.
Reviewing the film, critic Amelia Berry calls it a culmination of two long-running themes in Preston’s work: the quiet studies of great New Zealand artists, and the fascination with how the domestic intersects with war, politics and death.
White, whose work once hung on the walls of Mana College, is best known for iconic images such as Fish and Chips, Maketu. But her career has extended far beyond those familiar 1970s paintings. Today, her art weaves together Pacific materials, Bahá’í spirituality and bold, collaborative storytelling.
“Peace is not just an idea,” White says in the film. “It’s what we are. It’s how we are. It’s our culture… that has to start in the home.”
The documentary moves between past and present, pairing White’s reflections with footage from her travels, from her Masterton studio to Kiribati, Hiroshima and back to her marae. Along the way, she explores a new work inspired by Gauguin, asking friends whether her vision feels authentic or like a colonial fantasy.
Filmed with Preston’s characteristic intimacy and curiosity, Grace reveals the layers and textures of White’s work in stunning detail. It is also a rare meeting of two of Aotearoa’s cultural heavyweights, both official Dames and both dedicated to telling local stories with honesty and heart.
“It was like being on a beach,” Preston said in an interview. “When you quite casually pick up a stone and you turn it over and it reveals treasure… The more I found out about Robin’s work, particularly her later work, I felt like that.”
Screenings of Grace: A Prayer for Peace are now showing at Shoreline Cinema and other independent theatres around the country.
More information and session times are available at:
shorelinecinema.co.nz/movies/726