Actor Ian Mune returns to the spotlight with solo art exhibition
Veteran New Zealand actor Ian Mune is stepping away from the footlights and into the gallery for his first solo art exhibition.
After a career that began in the 1960s with Downstage and included knighthood in 2024, Mune turned to painting full‑time following the death of his wife Josie in 2017. The loss prompted him to abandon film projects and fill his Kumeū cottage with canvases, sketches and even stacks of life‑drawings.
The show, titled Road+, opens next Friday at Studio One Toi Tū in Ponsonby. Curated by fellow Auckland artist Jane McGill, the exhibition is divided into four sections – Dream World, Beauty or the Beast, Tributes to the Garden Warrior, and WTF – each exploring imagined places, portraiture, a homage to his late wife, and works that resist definition.
Mune’s practice is shaped by his colour‑blindness; he relies on a personal labelling system to distinguish greens, browns and reds, often starting from photographs before letting the canvas ‘talk back.’ Recent pieces focus on New Zealand landscapes, a shift he made after a research trip abroad revealed his preference for home‑grown scenery.
Now a great‑grandfather who paints with a local portrait group on Fridays, Mune treats the exhibition as another opening night, admitting the nerves but also the excitement of sharing a lifelong passion that finally takes centre stage.