Nigel Borell

Nigel John Floyd Borell (born 1973) is a New Zealand Māori artist, curator, and Māori art advocate. He curated the exhibition Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in 2020, the largest exhibition since they opened. In 2021 the Art Foundation of New Zealand created an award (He Momo – A Moment in Time Award) to acknowledge the work of Borell in this exhibition.

His early influences include artist Cliff Whiting and the Peter Gossage series of Māui illustrated books. He completed a Bachelor of Māori Visual Arts at Massey University in Palmerston North in 2000. There he studied under Robert Jahnke, Kura Te Waru Rewiri, Shane Cotton and the Toioho ki Apiti programme. He followed this by completing a Master of Fine Arts at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland in 2003. He has hands-on experience in Māori arts, working on three meeting house projects under tohunga whakaio Pakariki (Paki) Harrison 1995-2000 and kowhaiwhai artist Peter Boyd, and has been influenced by Māori curators Megan Tamati-Quennell and Ngahiraka Mason. The documentary of the exhibition is by Chelsea Winstanley. Borell resigned from his role at the art gallery in late October, leaving 23 December 2020 two weeks after Toi Tū Toi Ora opened stating that there was a lack of control awarded to him in the lead up and calling for 'colonial institutions to share power more equally'.

In 2022 it was announced he would return to Auckland War Memorial Museum as Curator Taonga Māori, the role previously held by Chanel Clarke. Puke Ariki, Wairau Māori Art Gallery, Hundertwasser Art Centre, Whangārei, 2022 Indigenous Histories: Rupturing Representation, The Museum of Art, São Paulo, Brasil and Kode Bergen Art Museum, Norway (2023-2024) Lisa Reihana: He Wai Ngunguru, Nomads of the Sea, Wairau Māori Art Gallery, Hundertwasser Art Centre, Whangārei, 2023