Richard Shepherd

Whanganui Art and Design lecturer Dr Richard Shepherd brings a broad range of academic background and life experiences to his new role at UCOL.

His recent exhibition of photographic artworks at Edith Gallery has proved a hit, gaining rave reviews from many of his students.

Born in South Africa, his family moved in the mid-1990s from Port Elizabeth to Auckland, where he attended secondary school at Howick College. After that he studied at Otago University in Dunedin for two years of a Bachelor of Physical Education.

“The first year was amazing,” Richard says. “Basically, the same material a first-year medical student gets. We worked with real human remains during the basic anatomy classes and that was very eye opening.”

But in the second year he decided the discipline was not for him and switched to a Bachelor of Communication. After completing in 2004, he began an honours degree at the University of Auckland’s film department. “I watched some absolutely essential films in that programme – Fred Wiseman, Chris Marker, Dziga Vertov – but by the end of it I was burnt out.”

He travelled overseas and when he returned, he headed for Wellington hoping to get into journalism. “I think I fantasised about being some kind of Joan Didion or Hunter S. Thompson-type figure.” When he didn’t make the intake he enrolled in a Diploma of Photography at Massey University, an experience he describes as revelatory.

“I basically spent two years discovering the whole history and world of modern art and photography. I clocked a lot of hours in the library absorbing everything I could and looking at everything I could find. I realised that I was more interested in the story and the world of the arts than just photography per se.”

That led to enrolment in the Master of Fine Arts, also at Massey Wellington, in his mid-20s. During the course, he “tried a little bit of everything in that slightly mad way someone who is brand new to a subject does”.

Photography was my gateway drug. I was a shy, slightly awkward young person who used the camera as an excuse and a way to experience my environment. Photography was a way I could learn how to see. But I never really imagined it as a professional practice exactly or imagined myself working in a photographic industry. I was more drawn to the conceptual and critical and expressive aspects of the visual arts more broadly.”

Associate Professor Ann Shelton and, briefly, Gavin Hipkins were photographic artists on the staff he cites as influential to his study. “It was through them that I came to understand how a creative practice can also be about ideas, questions, problems; more about exploring your culture and environment than about personal expression.”

While studying he also got his first experience of teaching, tutoring in Victoria University’s Media Studies Department. After graduating with the MFA in 2011, he taught part-time at Massey’s Photography Department and enrolled for a PhD in the Film Studies Department at Victoria.

He jokingly acknowledges a “habit of moving into fields and disciplines I have a huge interest in but little formal experience of”. The doctorate was purely research and writing, completed with a dissertation entitled The Experimental Ethos of Nicole Brenez and Cinema as a Visionary Critical Activity. “Brenez is a French film theorist and critic who specialises in experimental and avant-garde cinema. My thesis was the first English language study of her writing and her whole approach to cinema.”

He moved from the Kāpiti Coast to Whanganui while completing the dissertation, which coincided with Covid’s arrival in early 2020. He credits his supervisor, Associate Professor Thierry Jutel, with keeping him focussed and he graduated in 2023. By that stage he was committed to Whanganui and was aware of the legacy and reputation of UCOL’s Art and Design School from some graduates he had met in Wellington.

The fixed-term teaching contracts had dried up so the option of a permanent position appealed. By that stage he had taught anthropology, popular music, media studies, film studies, “as well as the kind of arts programmes I’m working in now”.

“One of the things I like about the creative education space is that your students often end up being your first audience and I get a lot out of that. I teach our Postgraduate Diploma of Design, and one of the great benefits of that is you get to communicate with students more like you would with your creative peers outside of the educational context.

“I try to create a challenging but generative creative environment in the classroom; exposing students to ideas and work that takes them out of their comfort zones and hopefully inspires them to be ambitious and take risks.”

Looking back, the 43-year-old says not getting into journalism was a “sliding doors” moment. “Everything I’m doing now has been as a result of not getting accepted into that and having to find an alternative.

“I identified completely and admired so much the kind of things I saw artists doing, the way they engaged with their time, felt deeply and explored reality through different materials. I realised I was someone who loved learning, who loved a sense of discovery, and I wanted very much to maintain my independence and spirit. The culture of the arts was the only space I saw that allowed me to project this into a life-long vision.”

Outside teaching and photography, he enjoys reading, gardening and cinema. “I’ve found since my PhD that my taste has completely changed and become really polarised. I enjoy stuff that is either totally trash and ephemeral or the most challenging, disorientating experimental work. The middle has completely fallen out.”

Examples of Richard’s artwork and images from his recent exhibition can be found below and at richardshepherdartist.com

To learn more about UCOL’s Creative programmes, visit ucol.ac.nz