Street Art in New Zealand’s North Island

We love street art, and after travelling around New Zealand for months, by boat and campervan, enjoyed the varied street art in New Zealand. I found the best street art in New Zealand’s North Island.

Some cities are infinitely better than others for street art. It seems like you need a confluence of artists and unused building and enlightened sponsors. Like other places with excellent street art, many of the best towns for street art in New Zealand’s North Island host festivals devoted to the craft.

Street Art in New Zealand’s North Island: Subjects

The subjects of street art in New Zealand run the gamut, as they do in most places with good outdoor art. Here they range from beautiful fantasy women to real people to birds and fish to Maori mythology. Themes and subjects which are important to the culture get repeated more often.

Best Places for Street Art in New Zealand’s North Island

We travelled throughout both islands and saw great street art in the South Island. But to see the most variety of street art in New Zealand, visit the North Island. Maybe more artists live here, or, probably, the cities and towns devote more money and attention to outdoor art. Whatever the reason, many North Island towns have excellent street art. I am not arranging by preference, simply alphabetically. Here’s a map view for reference.

Auckland

New Zealand’s biggest city isn’t the best place for outdoor art. However, you can spot some nice murals while you’re walking around. On our walking tour, one of our Auckland favorites, our guide pointed out a few examples.

First is a cabinet mural by Paul Walker, called Noo Zillun. The piece features a lot of Kiwiana, including Moas, volcanoes, and a meat pie. It’s located right off Queen Street in the Auckland CBD.

Other notable pieces come from an Auckland initiative called Heart of the City, which commissioned artists to paint hearts.

This is Auckland artist Sarah Hughes’ Sun Burst from 2016.

Another is Flox’ East Meets West where she combines natural worlds of China and New Zealand.

As birds are the only indigenous animals in New Zealand, it’s no wonder they’re in a lot of the art. These two sit side by side in a downtown Auckland laneway.

Despite multiple trips to Auckland, we didn’t see much street art, but there are more hearts – and other murals – out there!

Hawkes Bay: Hastings and Napier

The street art scene in Napier and adjacent Hastings is almost as good as their renowned Art Deco buildings and wines. We only spent a few days in Hawkes Bay, but highly recommend visiting if you like pretty towns, good food, and New Zealand wine.

Napier was the first New Zealand city to host Sea Walls, part of the worldwide PangeaSeed ARTvism movement, which even hit our old neighborhood in Toronto. We only saw a few of the 50 murals that went up in 2016 and 2017 in Napier, including those at the waterfront aquarium.

The “Hastings Icons” series celebrates people and ideas from the town, like Rita Angus, a locally born painter.

Art is featured prominently on municipal buildings here, like the aquarium and the below Hastings library. This painting includes animals, people, and even Indigenous symbols we’ve seen before on the French Polynesian tattoos.

Don’t miss the alleyways in these towns in New Zealand if you like street art, like this one we found in Hastings.

Katikati

On top of being the avocado capital of New Zealand, Katikati bills itself a mural town. It’s true. Murals cover the walls and billboards of this small town in the Bay of Plenty.

One of my favorite things about the Katikati murals is the old-timey style of most compared to street art anywhere else.

The street art in Katikati is older than most of the street art in New Zealand, and a lot of it depicts stories of the town history. Each has a number with a QR code so you can read about each piece.

Beginning with one mural in 1990, the township now has over 80 murals and sculptures. They host a week long mural contest and arts festival every two years. One year at the festival, visitors paid $5 each to paint a tile which became the art below.

We visited on a rainy Saturday, making it difficult to take photos while holding an umbrella and trying to stay dry. I am sure it’s lovely on a nice day to stroll the streets admiring the art.

The street art also includes sculptures, including a giant avocado.

New Plymouth

The last stop on our epic New Zealand road trip, New Plymouth is home to several festivals. Not a big city even by New Zealand standards, with less than 90,000 residents, this west coast town has lovely parks and diverse displays of street art.

New Plymouth’s Tattoo festival is the source for much of the street art, including this 2019 collaboration wall between two New Zealand artists: @_dside and @milarky

It’s fun to walk around the downtown, spotting colorful murals on the sides of buildings.

Huatoki Plaza is a pedestrian square with lots of graffiti, giving the public space a warm and welcoming vibe.

This beautiful mural was painted in honor of a Maori activist, Hana te Hamara, on the 50th anniversary of Maori Language Day. The artist, Mr. G, is a New Zealand native.

Palmerston North

We made a brief stop in Palmerston North for a few hours to get Brian’s bike fixed and grab lunch. In our short stop, we noticed the town has good street art.

Palmerston North’s council seems very supportive of outdoor art and artists. There’s enough street art in the city for walking tours showcasing the murals and sculptures downtown.

Taupo

Our first stop on our New Zealand road trip, we had to bike uphill from our campervan to Taupo’s town. But we did it two days in a row because we liked Taupo. It had some cool restaurants and bars, and good street art too.

Taupo hosts New Zealand’s oldest street art festival called Graffiato, which started in 2011. In two days, we didn’t get to see nearly as much as the town offers, but here are some highlights.

Taupo’s Graffiato festival is held annually on Labor Day weekend but you can see the outdoor art anytime. This one from Maori artists Charles and Janine Williams is on Tūwharetoa street in Taupo.

Tauranga and The Mount

Our boat’s home for a few months, these neighboring coastal towns on The Bay of Plenty display lots of art.

Both Tauranga and Manganui host street art festivals, attracting local and international talent. You can find online maps for three street art walks: in Tauranga’s CBD, near the Tauranga village, and in Mount Manganui.

tauranga cbD

Tauranga’s downtown includes a waterfront park which holds a variety of sculptures.

Not all art is on walls. We’ve seen a lot on utility boxes around the country, like this punk in Tauranga.

Tauranga suburbs, historic village

manganui

Fin Dac, from Ireland, has murals all over the world, including Taaniko, on a wall next to a vet in Manganui.

Wellington

New Zealand’s capital city is not the capital for street art, but we spotted some murals near the waterfront and at breweries.

This shark wall across from the Te Papa museum in downtown Wellington, is from 2013. It was painted during the city’s Shark Awareness Week and features 190 sharks, the amount killed every minute. The art was made by BMD, a now disbanded street art collective.

Whanganui

This sleepy little riverfront town in the southwest of New Zealand’s North Island is known for its artists and architecture. The town has long hosted an international street art fest called Whanganui Walls.

We had a fun time photographing the street art in this tiny city. This mural by Swiftmantis is a portrait of a local stray cat who lived at the airport. You can see it on the side of the Farmers department store building in Whanganui.

Another piece from the 2021 festival is WHIO from New Zealand artist Flox, who paints stunning New Zealand birds.

Australian artist Claire Foxton painted the below portrait of two Whanganui locals for Whanganui Walls 2019.

Another prolific New Zealand muralist, Cinzah, painted Peel back the layers of oneself for Whanganui Walls.

This piece, from 2013, was created by international artists Shida X Eno.

Whanganui is a river city, so don’t forget to walk – or bike – along the waterfront paths. One of the sights you’ll see could be this sphere with the river etched into it, a sculpture by New Zealand artist David McCracken.

Whangarei

We spent over a month in Whangarei, so had a lot of time to see the impressive street art here. In 2019, Whangarei hosted the international street art festival Manaia, and many of the murals are featured in a street art trail in the city centre. From our experience exploring the country, Whangarei ranks among the best places for street art in New Zealand.

Butter Factory Lane has both good Whangarei restaurants and excellent street art. Manaia, by Mateus Bailon, is a depiction of a Maori mythological creature.

Whangarei’s waterfront parks are also home to some stunning street art.

Outside of Whangarei’s CBD is a residential neighborhood called Kamo, home to more murals. We visited a few times on our bikes after visiting parks and waterfalls, and took photos of the murals in Kamo.

Whitianga

We stopped in Whitianga twice while sailing around Auckland on the way to and from Tauranga. It’s one of the biggest towns in the Coromandel and has a lively art scene. Whitianga had an art festival in 2019 which produced 12 murals.

New Zealand based artist Pauly B. painted this mural for the same art festival.

Conclusion: Street Art in New Zealand’s North Island

As you can see, there is some world class street art in New Zealand’s North Island. With talented home grown artists, support from communities, and dedicated festivals, there’s a lot of outdoor art to see!

Where have you been with great street art or where in New Zealand would you visit for street art? Let us know in the comments.