Rose Shepard

Rose Shepard has a diverse creative practice that has seen her working as a muralist, paper mache puppet-maker, designer, art educator, and gallerist.

In the 1990s, Shepard worked as set designer for the NZ Wearable Art Awards (an early iteration of WoW), and was designer for the Tasman District Millennium Project, ‘Greet the Dawn’. She completed a Visual Arts Diploma at the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology in 1998, having received a scholarship from the National Council of Women and the Tasman District Council to finish her studies (a one off scholarship donated by the Tasman District Council to celebrate the centennial of the National Council of Women). She also ran the Provenance Art Gallery.

Shepard holds an MFA from Whitecliffe College of Art and Design (2013). For her thesis she researched the stories associated with Eliza Fraser, known for her survival on what was later named Fraser Island (Queensland, Australia). Shepard is a descendant of Eliza through her mother, Barbara Muir Fraser. This resulting body of work was exhibited as ‘Telling Tales’, Hervey Bay Regional Gallery, Queensland, Australia (Nov 2014 – Feb 2015), Shepard’s more recent work looks into the environmental action work of Perrine Moncrieff which culminated in the creation of the Abel Tasman National Park.

Shepard is current President of the Otago Art Society (2024)

See also:

• Rose Shepard (Nelson Suter Art Society website)
• Pictures tell story of multi-million dollar council art collections | RNZ News
• Councillors - The Otago Art Society