Zina’s work investigates the relationship between humans and the natural world, with a particular interest in notions of anthropomorphism. Her watercolour imagery suggests both imagined fragile ecologies and human-plant permutations. Her generally ephemeral sculptural pieces convey a fragility and precariousness that ekes out into our perception and experience of the world around them.

Zina Swanson graduated from the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture. She has exhibited extensively over the past decade, including at Artspace, Auckland; Wellington City Gallery; Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū; the Physics Room and High Street Project (both Christchurch), as well as in Australia. In 2004 Swanson won the CoCA/Anthony Harper Award for Contemporary Art. In 2013, she was the Frances Hodgkins Fellow, Dunedin and in 2014 she took up a residency at apexart, New York.