Diane Prince

B. 1952, Nga Puhi, Ngati Whatua and Ngati Kahu

Diane Prince (Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Whātua and Ngāti Kahu) was born in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, in 1952. She was educated at Wellington Teachers’ Training College, Victoria University, and the University of Auckland. She currently lives in Peka Peka.

Diane is a multidisciplinary artist. Her practice covers painting, weaving, installation art, education, and set design. She has been exhibiting, both nationally and internationally, since the 1980s. Major exhibitions include Veiled Legacy (2001) at Te Whare Toi City Gallery Wellington, contributions to Korurangi: New Māori Art (1995) at Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Art Gallery, and touring survey of works curated by Gina Matchitt, Diane Prince: Activist Artist (2024-2025). She has done set-design for plays by Briar Grace-Smith and Witi Ihimaera. Diane’s collaboration with artist Shona Rapira-Davies is a significant ongoing project. As Native Bird Productions, they have shown work together, beginning in 2003, with Native Bird Productions which showed at venues throughout the North Island, and most recently with Native Birds 2025 at Bowen Galleries. Her work is held in major collections throughout New Zealand, including Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, and Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū. A weaving of Diane’s, owned by Te Papa, was shown in the Musée du quai Branly, Paris, in 2011.

Diane’s work is a visual expression of her strong stand on Māori rights and Māori women’s issues. A longtime veteran of Māori politics and land struggles, Diane was a researcher for the Bastion Point land occupation between 1977 and 1978. In 2025, Diane gained nationwide media attention for Flagging the Future: Te Kiritangata – The Last Palisade, an artwork with the words “please walk on me” stencilled on the New Zealand flag. The work was originally displayed in 1995, as a critique of the Bolger government and the fiscal caps they imposed on Treaty of Waitangi settlements. Following public outcry, the work was removed from Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Art Gallery. 30 years later, the work featured in Diane Prince: Activist Artist, and once again, generated significant public response. Flagging the Future was removed from the exhibition at The Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatū as a precautionary measure, as the conversation surrounding the work escalated well beyond the bounds of respectful debate.

• Native Birds, 2025
• Tangaroa was forced to marry me, 2023 with Shona Rapira-Davies
• Cultural Incisions, 2017
• Paradise, 2013
• Paper, gold silver, 2011
• and so I wove a lawyers wig, a lawyers wig for me, and so I wove a lawyers wig, to weave my whenua back to me, 2010
• “Kia hiwa ra” alert, 2008
• All my children have different fathers, 2006
• Native bird productions 3, 2005 with Shona Rapira-Davies