Roberta Thornley was born in Auckland. She received a prime minister’s sports scholarship to attend the University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts. There she studied sculpture, painting and photography. She graduated in 2008.

She has exhibited in numerous exhibitions in both New Zealand and Australia and her work is held in private and public collections throughout New Zealand and internationally. She has won a number of prizes including the inaugural Auckland Festival of Photography annual commission, the Art50 trust funding grant and the Tylee Cottage artist residency, where she developed a body of work about a Whanganui teenage gymnast Millie recovering from injury at her seaside home in Castlecliff. In 2017 she was awarded the Marti Friedlander Prize for photography from the Arts Foundation.

Roberta has had a life-long interest in photography and an ongoing interest in the work of others. Her approach has been influenced by her relationships, a cultural heritage and education where the aesthetic experience was inherent and her life lived in sport.

In her practice she crosses genres and approaches – landscape, portraiture, and still life; from the staged to the incidental. She explores transformation and transition; states of change as well as evolution and development.

Her process is playful, exploring the shape and materiality of her subjects, building relationships, navigating landscapes. Yet play pauses when she takes a photograph and she is acutely aware of, and interested in, exploring this dialogue between play and the photographic act when she engages with her subjects.

Aaron Lister, Curator, City Gallery Wellington

Roberta is working on a photobook that chronicles her time spent in Rwanda in 2015. She has a multidisciplinary research interest in aesthetics and is currently developing new commercial work. She lives in the Waikato with her 4-year-old daughter and partner.

Born 1985

Auckland, New Zealand

Education 

BFA Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland University 2007

Solo Exhibitions 

Selected Works
Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2023

Through the Nautical Twilight
Laree Payne Gallery, Hamilton New Zealand, 2022

My Head on your Heart
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland New Zealand, 2020

Maternity Leave March 2018 — March 2020 

Survey show: Round and Round
Roberta Thornley works to date. The Pah Homestead, Auckland, New Zealand, 2018

A Serious Girl
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland New Zealand, 2018

A Serious Girl
Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui New Zealand, 2017

Round and Round
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland New Zealand, 2015

O.E Travel 2014 — 2015

History in the Taking:Forty Years of PhotoForum
City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, 2015

I will meet you there
Tim Melville Gallery, Melbourne Art Fair, Australia, 2012

Anthem
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland New Zealand, 2011

Auckland Festival of Photography commission
Aotea Centre, Auckland New Zealand, 2011

Tomorrow
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland New Zealand, 2010

Spell
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland 2010

Spell
Stills Gallery, Sydney Australia, 2010

Idle
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland New Zealand, 2009

Pine
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland New Zealand, 2008

Selected Group Exhibitions 

Peakes and Troughs
Conor Clark and Friends — Jonathan Smart Gallery 2023

Autonomous Bodies
The national portrait Gallery 16 September — 11 November 2021

On with the Show
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland New Zealand, 2020

Turn of a Century
Sarjeant Gallery 7 Sep 2019 — 9 Feb 2020

125: Celebrating women from the collection
Sarjeant Gallery Sep 15 — 17 Feb 2019

Auckland Art Fair
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2018

Aotearoa in Tokyo 
Tokyo institute of Photography, Tokyo 2018

We Do This
Christchurch Art Gallery, Christchurch, New Zealand, 2019

In bright brief moments
Demo Gallery, Auckland , New Zealand, 2019

See what I can see: Discovering New Zealand photography
Suter Gallery, Nelson, New Zealand, 2017 (Nationally Toured exhibition)

Auckland Art Fair
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2017

Ten Years
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2017

The Blue Hour
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2016

Traits
Corban Estate Arts Centre, Auckland, New Zealand, 2016

Auckland Art Fair
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2016

Three Colours Red
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2015

Now you see it…
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2014

Boys don’t cry
Heather Straka and Roberta Thornley
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2014

Saloon des Ferari
Ferari Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2013

Three Colours Blue
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2013

Sea of Fog
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland New Zealand, 2008
The Nathan Club, Auckland, New Zealand, 2012

Five Years
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2012

Cruel & Tender
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2012

Now and Then
Te Manawa Museum, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 2012

Everyday Irregular
Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua Whanganui, New Zealand, 2011

Auckland Art Fair
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2011

Game On
Hastings City Art Gallery, Hastings, New Zealand, 2011

Toy Story
The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, New Zealand, 2011

Another Universe
Calder & Lawson Gallery, University of Waikato, New Zealand, 2011

Deeper Water
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2011

Uncanny Valley
Christchurch Art Gallery, Christchurch, New Zealand, 2010

Paper Scissors Rock
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2010

Pretty Vacant
Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand, 2010

Melbourne Art Fair
Tim Melville Gallery, Melbourne, Australia, 2010

Black Market
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2009

Auckland Art Fair
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2009

Words&Pictures
Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2008

Aperitif
George Fraser Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2007

Portrait
George Fraser Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2006

Awards & Residencies

Mart Friedlander Award — The Arts Foundation, 2018

Tylee Cottage Residency, Whanganui, 2015

Art Five0 Trust Grant, 2013

Auckland Festival of Photography, inaugural commission, 2011

Collections 

Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu

Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua Whanganui

Arts House Trust

Real Art Roadshow

Waikato Hospital Art Trust

Private collections New Zealand and Internationally

Books

My Head on your Heart — A petite booklet of text made to accompany the exhibition of the same name. Made with pages of delicate pink tissue. Edited by Jessica Kid and Designed by Joseph Salmon. 2020