ARTIST BIO

Maggie Covell is a New Zealand based Visual Artist with a strong illustrative background.   

 

 

Her story

Born in Rotorua, New Zealand she began her artist career as a fashion illustrator in the Australian Rag trade during the early 2000's.  Covell also studied film and media through Sydney University forming a (creative) collaborative partnership with a fellow classmate. This collaboration would involve extended travel to South America to film/produce an independant documentry (2004-2005). 

 

Following her return to New Zealand (2007), Covell principally sold work on a commission basis. In 2010 she relocated to Dunedin, completing an undergraduate degree (BA) through the University of Otago - a double Major in, English Literature and Art History and Theory. It was during this time that Covell was introduced to the corpus of Victorian Illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt and, German Expressionist painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Artist models which, became instrumental/key in her stylistic development, and treatment of the subject. In 2014, she completed an Honors degree through the Art History and Theory department of Otago University. 

 

During her time in Dunedin, Covell co-founded an art collective Glorybox, that would become an affiliated Arts Trust in 2014. The impetus behind Glorybox was to foster emerging artists/musicians working as a platform into the Arts community. Since 2013, Glorybox has produced many live performance events combining music and art. Glorybox's signature became the "pop-up" gallery with Covell co-curating and co-exhibiting. 

 

 

Glorybox also worked with various other community organizations to include, OUSA/Univeristy of Otago Art-week (Covell was the student curator 2013), the annual OUSA Gallery Crawl event, Vogel Street Party and the Fringe Festival. Covell also made her mark on Dunedin's urban landscape with her large scale street art pieces working alongside local businesses and the DSA Trust.

 

 

Early 2017, she relocated back to the BOP region where she completed a GradDip in Creative Entrpreneurialism through Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology (Mokoia Campus). Whilst studying she began self publishing a series of Little Art Books which are stocked throughout New Zealand. One of her books, The Fierce Little Handbook of Women A-Z was funded through CCS (Creative Communities Scheme).

 

Covell has also tested her feet in the conceptual realm collaborating on several large scale public installations within the BOP region, New Zealand. Experimenting with textile art and projection display her practice has evolved over the last few years especially, regarding the deployment of her work. She re-focused her artist models to include, Warhol and the graphic lines of American Pop art and, Neo-conceptaulist Jenny Holzer.

 

In 2017, she teamed up with BOP based Kabuki Doll (Jess Covell) a soft scultputre installation artist on a number of projects. Including, BOP based micro  Music Festival, Live Music @ The Lettuce Inn. 

 

 

Stockists

Little Art Books:

Artspost Galleries & Shop - Hamilton, New Zealand

Ashburton Art Gallery (shop) - Ashburton, New Zealand

Hapa NZ - Christchruch, New Zealand

Portico Gallery - Rotorua, New Zealand

The Dowse Art Museum (shop) - Lower Hutt, New Zealand

The Women's Bookshop - Ponsonby, Auckland, New Zealand

Waikato Art Museum (shop) - Hamilton, New Zealand

 

Art Prints:

NZ Native Bird (Limited Ed prints)

Jak & Co Design Studio (instore only) - Napier + New Plymouth, New Zealand