Marilyn Rea-Menzies

Marilyn Rea-Menzies (born 1 February 1944) is a New Zealand artist, principally known for her tapestry work, but who also exhibits drawing, painting, and digital print. She is considered one of New Zealand's leading textile artists.

Life Rea-Menzies was born in Westport on the West Coast of the South Island on 1 February 1944, the eldest of nine children. Her grandparents had arrived in Westport in 1920, and her parents Meg (née Eddy) and Alan Rea ran the O'Conor Home Farm from 1947, first on McKenna Road, and then from 1952 at Nine Mile Road. Marilyn had what she describes as a rural Irish Catholic upbringing, doing farm chores, helping with the milking, and riding horses.

Rea-Menzies lived in Tauranga and nearby Mount Maunganui until 1990. When she separated from her husband in December 1985 she resolved to begin an artistic career. She was also strongly influenced by seeing Colin McCahon's painting On Building Bridges around 1977 in the Auckland Art Gallery. Rea-Menzies has been influenced by Colin McCahon, Louise Henderson, and John Weeks, and international artists Chuck Close, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and David Hockney. Although principally known for her tapestries, Rea-Menzies has regularly exhibited photography and drawing; all three media were part of her 2008 show Underfoot at the Centre of Contemporary Art (CoCA) in Christchurch. She also exhibits paintings and digital designs. A Matter of Degrees (collaboration with Graham Bennett)From 1995, Rea-Menzies worked with nine other artists to make a series of Collaborative Tapestries from their designs, culminating in the 2005 show Primary Connections at the Mair Gallery in CoCA. Her first collaboration was Living in the South Pacific with Christchurch printmaker Michael Reed. In 1999, Rea-Menzies was commissioned to create a tapestry to mark the millennium celebrations in Christchurch. This was Rea-Menzies' second collaborative tapestry. Creating it took 18 months, from April 1999 to September 2000, Initially installed in the Christchurch Town Hall, it is now on display in the Christchurch City Council chambers on Hereford Street.

Collections Rea-Menzies work has been commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for display in New Zealand embassies around the world, starting with her early work Green Landscape (1985). One of Rea-Menzies' earliest tapestries, Landscape Series No 2 (1980), was purchased by Auckland Library in 1981 and is now in collection of the Auckland War Memorial Museum. An acrylic-on-canvas portrait of the late Barry Hopkins is in the collection of Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, of which he was a patron. The Left Bank Art Gallery owns the charcoal and watercolour on paper work Poison Kills.

Solo shows Just Faces. February 1997: Salamander Gallery, Christchurch. Nature's Way: an exploration. September 2014: ArtsPost, Hamilton; 2016: Paeroa Arts Society, Paeroa. Its 75 works included tapestries, charcoal and pastel on paper, and watercolour paintings of endangered plants and animals. The three largest tapestries, in the form of cloaks, depicted endangered New Zealand birds: Kokako, Tieke (Saddleback) and Hihi (Stitchbird). Three pastel works, Protect Our Forest, were added in 2019 following her return to Westport.