An autodidact with an art history degree from Victoria University, Wellington, Raewyn Atkinson was born in Napier, New Zealand, in 1955.
During her twenty-five years' involvement with clay, Raewyn has received a number of art awards including the Portage Ceramic Award and the Norsewear Art Award in 2004. Her work is held in many private and public, national and international collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum, USA, and the Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art, Shigaraki, Japan.
The Artist to Antarctica Fellowship in 2000 allowed Raewyn to indulge in obsessive experimentation with the translucent properties of porcelain. A return visit in 2003 on board the tourist ship, Polar Star, resulted in several major exhibitions, including Terra Nova 2002 and Designs on Antarctica, 2005.
In March-May 2004, Raewyn was Guest Artist at the Canberra School of Arts, Australian National University, where the products of her experiments with slip-casting paper-thin porcelain 'tins', transferring laser prints and casting large solid glass bases were exhibited as Tabula Rasa Part 1 at Photo Space, Canberra School of Arts. Raewyn was an invited speaker at the Gulgong Ceramic Conference, Clay Modern, Australia, 2-8 May, 2004.
2009, an Arts Board Investment Craft Object Art Grant allowed Raewyn to research and create new work. 1 July to 31 October her work will be included in the 2010 Ceramics Biennale in Taiwan.
2010 Raewyn is based in San Francisco, creating a large ceramic sculpture at UC Berkeley at the invitation of Professor Richard Shaw - one of the leading figures in contemporary ceramics in the US. She is continuing to explore the relationship between her work with ceramics and printmaking using the facilities and expertise at the Department of Art Practice at Berkeley.