Perspectives from Gallerists. Interview with Anna Miles from Anna Miles Gallery

Since opening Anna Miles Gallery in Auckland in 2003, Anna Miles has developed a programme that moves fluidly between jewellery and other contemporary art practices, challenging conventional boundaries between disciplines. Guided by curiosity rather than categories, the gallery champions artists whose work expands the ways we think about materials, making and artistic ambition.


With a background as an art critic, you decided it would be more productive to be a champion than a critic. What changed in your relationship to art when you moved from observing and analysing practices to defending and supporting artists??
Anna Miles: There is an idea that critics are most compelling when responding to things they loathe. My experience of flipping from critic to champion has not been particularly ‘polar’. What is constant is paying attention.

When I opened the gallery, attempting to be an art critic felt like playing tennis with yourself. There was little possibility of getting much better. The life of a dealer is happily much more sociable. I was attracted to the liveliness of the dealer scene here and respect my colleagues, past and present, who have devoted themselves to this activity.


Art dealer or/and gallerist? Do you see a difference between the two? How would you define your own role within Anna Miles Gallery?
I use art dealer because I like its directness rather than the euphemistic ring of the alternative. My role is to be an advocate and champion for the artists I represent. I understand some see ‘gallerist’ as the term more connected with exhibition making, which is one of the things I most enjoy.


Bed of Leaves, 2025 Rug by Vita Cochran, Chair by Marilyn Sainty with Rowan Panther, Pohuehue and Kauri. Photo credit: Samuel Hartnett.


Richard Stratton in the trees, installation at Anna Miles Gallery, 2015. Photo credit: Samuel Hartnett.


The exhibitions are the visible part of what a gallery does. Could you tell us more about the invisible dimension of running a gallery? What does the long-term commitment of a gallerist toward artists and collectors involve?
It is like tending a garden, cultivating constant hope that all those myriad of small tasks and interactions you pay attention to, will in the long run make a difference. 


You describe a gallery as a point-of-view business, driven by conviction rather than consensus. What convinces you to support an artist or a practice, especially when it may not yet fit established expectations or categories?
The idea that the work, and the artist who makes it, is a conduit to a different way of thinking that is otherwise unimaginable excites me. The decision to represent an artist, when you are committing to a potentially very long-term relationship with someone, resists analysis.

I try to pay a great deal of attention to the often slender evidence that exists. Watching artists develop in ways I never anticipated is a reward.


And how do you navigate the tension between accessibility and artistic risk when defending practices that may not be immediately understood or easily categorised?
The value of the under or not-yet-valued interests me. I distrust hierarchical judgments about the relative importance of different art forms. I’m interested in an expansive rather than ever-narrowing vision of art. The kinds of ‘tension’ you mention are part of the point of being involved.


Warwick Freeman, Just Monkeys, 2016, installed at Anna Miles Gallery. Photo credit: Samuel Hartnett.


Anna Miles Gallery brings together jewellery, ceramics, weaving, photography and painting without establishing strict hierarchies between them. Do you feel institutions and the international art market today leave enough room for unconventional or hybrid practices? Has presenting jewellery alongside other contemporary art forms changed the way audiences engage with the pieces or on the how they do it?
Hybrid practices are probably relatively well served, it is more specialised practices, such as jewellery, that are less well attended to within art institutions. Partly this reflects a lack of specialist knowledge. Fortunately, the adventurousness of individual collectors keeps things going.

It doesn’t matter whether the art is a teapot, a brooch or a photograph. What matters is that artists who are committed to what they do, whether jewellery or anything else, gain opportunities to be as ambitious about their practice as any other artist.

Showing different forms of art side by side is part of taking the work seriously. Progress is not as fast as I would like, but I am optimistic. The culture of making in Aotearoa is incredibly strong and brings together every wave of human migration that has reached these shores. When people look back in 200 or so years, I suspect it will be clear that it is not art history, but the rich history of making that is the real art of this place.


Today, headlines often focus on spectacular art auction results and record-breaking sales. Yet the reality of the market is mostly built around living artists, ordinary collectors, artworks that live in homes, and slow relationships developed over time. What about Anna Miles Gallery approach?
Art is important to me for precisely those qualities that distinguish it from every other form of consumption. Secondary market hype, auctions and art fairs miss the ways art is much more than a commodity, and they fail to deliver to artists. It is an indictment of our culture that so little attention is paid to the fact that an auction house sale delivers no or only infinitesimal financial benefit to the artist.

Art speculation is a very long way from the first-person art experience I am interested in that involves genuine, unstoppable interest in the views of others.


Octavia Cook. Brooch: Vul Deluxe, 2017-20, installed on Warwick Freeman Plinth in Things on Things, 2020. Photo credit: Samuel Hartnett.


A gallery should take people somewhere unexpected and thrilling.
The contemporary gallery model has become increasingly fluid: storefront galleries, appointment-only spaces, pop-ups, mobile galleries, fair-based shows, digital viewing rooms…
Where does Anna Miles Gallery position itself in this landscape? Has the gallery ever had to significantly evolve or rethink its format in order to continue?
After the gallery had been going for 11 years in a space downtown, I moved it into the building I live in with my family. This was challenging for me in the sense that I was determined that neither the artists nor the gallery would be taken any less seriously because of being located in a house, albeit one squarely in the art district.

It is disappointing that we still live in a world in which the domestic sphere is disparaged.

Eventually, I decided to put my money where my mouth is — the risk of the move was worthwhile because it fitted with my principles. Business owners have lived over their premises for centuries. Many galleries, including some of the western world’s most illustrious ones, have been located in domestic spaces, but this is often ‘under-reported’.


What role does the digital world play for you today? Do you think online platforms expand sensibilities and communities around art?
The internet has made it possible to encounter extraordinary work from anywhere, but it also demands discipline. Like many others, I squander inordinate amounts of time on scrolling. The diet starts tomorrow!


You currently present three New Zealand artists whose practices engage with jewellery in distinct ways. Could you tell us about your encounter with these artists, and more broadly how you build and maintain relationships with artists over time? And what do you think are the essential responsibilities on both sides within a healthy artist-gallery relationship today?
I have worked with Octavia Cook since the Gallery first opened. One of her works hung from a length of fishing line in the first exhibition at the gallery (a rockless, partially melted gold engagement ring called Pip ‘n’ Dave 1967). Most visitors missed it. Others who consulted the list asked where Octavia’s work was hiding. That the melted ring was at the centre of the gallery made perfect sense to me. It was only a few years older than I was. In retrospect that first exhibition contained ideas that have stayed with me ever since: paying attention, making a case for what is overlooked, and refusing to exclude art forms for conventional reasons.

Warwick Freeman and Rowan Panther came later, after many years of knowing them. Like Octavia, I work with them because of the extraordinary qualities of their art rather than any commitment to a particular medium.


Octavia Cook. Ring: Pip 'n' Dave 1967, 2003.


The year 2025 marked a particularly strong international visibility for the New Zealand contemporary jewellery scene during Schmuck Fair Week, notably through the satellite exhibitions across the city and Warwick Freeman’s exhibition in Munich.
Did you personally feel an increase in international attention toward your gallery following that moment?
Munich Jewellery Week had been described to me as ‘The Jewellery Olympics’, so I had fairly lavish expectations. I prepared a special envelope-scale publication to slip into people’s hands about the work of Octavia Cook and Warwick Freeman and got on the plane.

When I entered the enthralling Messe München, no sooner had I begun to separate the jewels from the lederhosen, than I was reminded of New Zealand. Coming from a market that is very limited in scale, I had hopes for something quite different. What was evident at once is that, like New Zealand, the world of contemporary jewellery is a small place in which you need to be relentlessly nimble.


Rowan Panther. Pendant: Tolu, 2023 in Cornucopia, 2025. Photo credit: Samuel Hartnett.


As a champion of the New Zealand contemporary scene, what do you think the international contemporary jewellery field could learn from it today, and perhaps also reconsider about itself?
Pay attention to what is under your nose.


Natural History, 2024. Works by Warwick Freeman, Octavia Cook and Richard Stratton (teapot). Credit photo: Samuel Hartnett.



Why Perspectives from Gallerists?
In the realm of artistic creation within art jewellery and contemporary crafts, Klimt02 aims to serve as a hub for promotion, discussion, and—most importantly—connection, highlighting the interconnectedness among all key players. Beyond showcasing work, we strive to amplify the voices committed to building this discipline as a recognised market within the art scene. That’s why gallerists’ perspectives matter: their day-to-day experience offers an essential, informed view of how the market actually works, its realities, and what the field needs to grow with integrity.