Rick Allender is a cinematographer and marquetry artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Having worked behind the camera from the 1980’s onwards, his extensive experience in film informs his approach to artmaking. Allender’s artistic practice is based on hand crafted contemporary marquetry, collage and sculpture in which he combines wood veneer with unexpected materials. Allender’s series for the Push Play exhibition sees each template broken apart and transfigured into a three-dimensional object which tentatively clings to the wall in the manner of a butterfly. He contrasts a variety of wood veneers with bright high-key colours in this sculptural series.

Allender has exhibited throughout Aotearoa and his work is held in several private collections here. He was a finalist in the Estuary Art and Ecology Prize in 2020 and the RT Nelson Sculpture Award in 2021.