Paulus McKinnon was born in Auckland in 1967. He graduated with a Bachelor of Design (majoring in painting) from Unitec Institute of Technology in Auckland in 1998.
As an artisan and a signwriter, Paulus has married the academic with the skills of his trade to create work that has a tactile quality unique to him.
Paulus has spent a great deal of his spare time travelling New Zealand - particularly its coastline. His work explores past and present relationships, both human and environmental, encompassing notions of discovery, loss and preservation. Using the metaphoric and allusive potential of prosaic materials like enamel paint, linoleum, found objects, salvaged timbers, weatherboards, road signage and sign-writing vinyls, much of his work employs a construction process. By cutting up the materials and formally recomposing them, Paulus creates new allegories.
In 1999 he co-founded Indicator Studios, a highly successful co-operative of ten artists working across a range of disciplines, holding large open studio exhibitions every year.
He has been exhibiting widely throughout New Zealand for the past ten years and is represented in significant private collections both locally and abroad.
Paulus has recently moved to Gisborne and is in the process of establishing new studios with his wife (designer, Katy Wallace) on a half-acre ex-mushroom farm.