Dean Raybould

Dean Raybould specializes in detailed and highly illustrative artworks. He often includes NZ land formations, social and ecological politics, and native NZ birds in a "tongue-in-cheek" style. A witty play on words is often included either in the title and/or within the work itself.
He cleverly includes humor alongside social justice issues, environmental rights, national identity, conservation, and questions of human existence. He will often return to the extinct New Zealand huia as a way of portraying his message. The huia bird can often appear personified, alongside recycled found objects - like old records for example in his musical themed works.
Art can be seen as an unconscious search for an authentic self, and here searching is the main narrative thread. Stringing loosely together universal questions of belonging and identity—national and cultural, personal and spiritual—or joining knotty contemporary realities with humanity's hardwired hunt for a tribal hearth. Salient searches that are often unresolved like the ambiguities portrayed in these works.
In 2025 Dean was awarded the Supreme Winner at the Cleveland National Awards