Warren Viscoe was born Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand.

After having trained as a builder, he pursued his art career abroad, studying at Chelsea College of Art in London, and the Ontario College of Art in Canada while working as a journeyman carpenter.

He returned to New Zealand in 1962 and graduated with a Diploma of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Art in 1965.

Since then he has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions in New Zealand and Australia, including Two Decades: A Survey Exhibition of the Work of Warren Viscoe at The Dowse in 1997, and Life and Limb, launched at the Sarjeant Gallery with an accompanying catalogue in 2000.

Viscoe builds symbols of migration and technology out of unlikely materials with curiosity and wit, to consider the value we place on culture, nature and economy. Blending the histories and myths that establish our place in the Pacific he asks, “How did we get here?”

“Wood for me is more of a culture than a medium. It takes in living forests, Māori tradition, and the pioneering drama.”