Reuben Paterson

Reuben Paterson (born 1973 Auckland, New Zealand) (Ngāti Rangitihi, Ngāi Tūhoe, Tūhourangi, Scottish) is a New Zealand artist based in New York, United States known for using glitter in his works.

Early life Paterson's family comes from Matatā in the Bay of Plenty, but he grew up in Bucklands Beach in Auckland, where his father Louis Paterson was a landscaper and his mother Sue Foss enjoyed gardening. He became interested in glitter as a medium in the 1990s when he was a student at Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland.

Paterson graduated from the University of Auckland in 1997 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and in the same year was one of three people awarded the Möet et Chandon Arts Fellowship to France, becoming the first Māori recipient and at the time the youngest recipient ever. After the fellowship, Paterson spent time travelling and lived in Bath, England for two years.

He won the Wallace Arts Trust Development Award in 2005.

Paterson became 'artist in residence' at New Plymouth's Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in 2013, and that year created The Golden Bearing, a life-size golden sculpture of a tree. He was inspired by his father's work as a landscaper. Five versions of the work have been created. In 2015 Paterson, who is himself gay, created a glitter-covered GAYTM in Ponsonby. GAYTMs were shortly vandalised in homophobic attacks as reported by Radio New Zealand, but was quickly cleaned up by ANZ. The bank donated proceeds from people using the GAYTMs to OUTline, a not-for-profit phone counselling service in New Zealand.

In 2017, Paterson collaborated with Cook Islands tivaevae / tivaivai artist Tungane Broadbent in Today, Tomorrow and Yesterday, at Bergman Gallery, Rarotonga, Cook Islands. They collaborated again in 2022 for Nga Meka – Tui Kura in Aotearoa Art Fair, and again in 2023 for Nga Meka – Tui Kura (Epilogue), Bergman Gallery, Rarotonga, Cook Islands.

In 2022 Paterson was a judge at the National Contemporary Art Awards.

Paterson announced his move to New York where he now lives in May 2023 for 'more professional and personal freedom'.

Paterson references his Scottish and Māori heritage by using paisley and koru designs in his works, and has said that he is inspired by “wallpaper, Hawaiian shirts, Dad’s ties and my kuia’s party dresses”.