Robyn Penn
Robyn Penn is a South African-New Zealander artist with a background in both countries. After returning to New Zealand in 2020, she settled in Tāmaki Makaurau and pursues her art and teaching career here.
For more than 20 years, Robyn has passionately educated students, as young as five years old, in Fine Arts and creative thinking. Her students consistently achieve top awards and distinctions in Visual Art and Design, often progressing to prestigious tertiary institutions.
Apart from private art classes, Robyn is involved in community art projects, aiming to promote art and creativity within communities. She initiated and facilitated children's art education programs at WITS Art Museum and the Turbine Art Fair in Johannesburg. She also conducted pro-bono workshops for underprivileged children in South Africa. Robyn is part of the Creatives in Schools Programme, collaborating with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatū Taonga, and Creative New Zealand. In 2022, she collaborated with Good Shepherd School to create a large ceramic mural with 200 junior school students.
Robyn's artistic practice spans drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, and film installations. Her work focuses on the natural world, time's elusive nature, and the sublime. She received her training from the University of the Witswatersrand and Canterbury University, Ilam. She is a fellow of the Ampersand Trust and exhibits internationally, with pieces in collections across the world, including works in the Victoria and Albert Collection, UK and The Smithsonian, USA.
