Born in Auckland, Rowan Panther is a lace textile artist whose work occupies the space between art and artefact. Coming from New Zealand, a country with complex colonisation, Panther connects to and explores her Irish/English/Samoan heritage with the aim to produce a hybrid cultural tradition. Inspired by museum displays and social domestic history, her work is concurrently art and craft, questioning the artificial distinction between the two. Panther has spent years refining her practice and has moved toward experimenting with wearable pieces of lace work. Her lei works are motivated by notions of welcome and acceptance and demonstrate a pacific interpretation of traditional lace, a northern hemisphere dominated practice. The woven pieces are made from muka, the raw filament stripped from the leaves of the Harekeke flax plant, a material with strong cultural and historical connection to Aotearoa New Zealand. She completed a Diploma in Photography from United in 2002 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam in 2008 and lives in Doubtless Bay, Northland.