Gaylene Barnes

Gaylene lives in Canterbury, NZ. She won the Southland Art Society's 'Young Contemporary of the Year' award in 1988, then graduated from Otago Polytechnic School of Fine Arts in 1991, as one of the first students to undertake the innovative 'Computer Art' program. She went on to collaborate with local musicians and artists in Dunedin to produce several video and multimedia projects. Further study at the University of Otago culminated in a multimedia installation "The Prison of Infinite Space" at Dunedin Public Art Gallery, and a one-act play "Laura Paints" at the Globe Theatre. In Dunedin she contributed to the award winning short film Signing Off, and feature film Scarfies as Production Designer, a role which earned a nomination in the Nokia Film Awards 2000. During the 1990's Gaylene was Creative Director for Taylormade Productions, Dunedin, as well as illustrator and animator for Natural History Limited. Her work on the Emmy Award winning show Twisted Tales - helped it earn four awards for 'Best Use of Graphics' at the IWFF International Wildlife Film Festival at Missoula, USA. In 2000 Gaylene set up a video services and production company in Christchurch, contributing to video, film, website and animation projects. Her music video Roll Call was nominated at the NZ Music Video Awards 2001; the animated children's television series jessie.com was nominated at the NZ Television Awards 2002. She provided creative support to many television series such as the music show Wannabes; and the award-winning Hunger for the Wild, Coasters and Aftermath. Gaylene has written and directed documentaries including observational series, The Grand Plan, as well as editing the award winning Barefoot Cinema, Earth Whisperers, Breath of Peace and The Art of Recovery. She was nominated in the New Zealand Screen Awards 2005 for 'Best Documentary Editing' for Out of Sight/Out of Mind. Gaylene was also Art Director for the television series Kaitangata Twitch, which earned 'Best Production Design' at the Qantas Film and Television Awards, 2010. Her self-produced projects include an animated black comedy The Mobile Meat Processing Unit, which screened in several international film festivals including pre-screening the film Beasts of the Southern Wild in Hamburg, Germany. In 2017, Gaylene released the documentary Seven Rivers Walking Haere Marire, which had the largest single screening of the NZIFF 2017, premiering at the Lady Isaac Theatre in Christchurch. Gaylene attended an international artist residency in Finland (Jan 2020). She was Story Producer, Writer and Editor on Season 3 of 'Changing South' (2021) a NZonAir funded web series. She also manages the family organic farms.