Diane Prince

Diane Prince (1952, Nga Puhi, Ngati Whatua and Ngati Kahu) is a multimedia artist: painter, weaver, installation art practitioner and an award winning set designer, who has been exhibiting nationally and internationally during her art career. She was educated at the Teachers Training College in Wellington, Victoria University and the University of Auckland.A longtime veteran of Māori politics and land struggles, Diane was a researcher for the Bastion Point land occupation 1977/78.

Her work is a visual expression of her strong stand on Māori rights and Māori women’s issues. Her collaboration over the last decade with artist Shona Rapira Davies (who shares descent with Diane from Nga Puhi and Ngati Whatua) in Native Bird Productions is an ongoing project. A weaving of Diane’s, owned by Te Papa, was included in the exhibition E Tu Ake: Standing strong, curated by Megan Tamati Quenell and shown first at Te Papa, then Musee du quai Branley, Paris, October 2011. In 2011 Diane was commissioned by the Wellington City Council to paint the mural on the building block, Te Aro Park.

Diane has recently retired from many years teaching at Te Wanaanga O Raukawa in Otaki. She lives on the coast at Waikanae with her whanau.

• 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