About me
Born in London and raised in both England and New Zealand, art has consistently added its own surprising narrative to my life, reaching across my childhood into my adult and professional years in both the northern and southern hemispheres. What has always remained fundamental to me is the language of art, the importance of engaging with artists and making the visual arts and art criticism more accessible. This has been reflected in the diverse artistic, writing and public projects that I’ve had the pleasure of working on in London, Sydney and Auckland.
I relocated to south-west France in 2015 following an art writing residency in the region the previous year, during which time I wrote, walked and fell in love with the area and its people. Now in France, I use my experience to support artists and visual arts professionals with their work on a national level, to help them better reach their career aims or to connect with the English speaking international art world.
As part of my own ongoing critical writing practice, I continue to develop multi-lingual projects that draw on the experience of living in a Francophone country. I’m particularly interested in exploring connections between the written and visual languages, and those linguistic grey areas that arise from translation and what they might mean for writing about art.
I currently live in the Lot department, Occitanie but return regularly to my family home in Auckland, New Zealand.
Bio
Altair Roelants (b.1981) is a France based independent art critique, writer and visual arts career consultant originating from London, UK and Auckland, New Zealand. She studied Art History and Contemporary Visual Culture at Goldsmiths College, University of London (2003 – 2006), graduating with First Class Honours and the Goldsmiths College Visual Cultures Department Award for Excellence in Academic Achievement for 2004 – 2006. Subsequently, Altair’s career has spanned almost two decades, involving a broad range of artist and text based projects, exhibitions, events and community initiatives in both London, Sydney, Auckland and France. She has had roles in art project management and coordination, communication, press relations and arts administration, alongside her work as a critic and writer.
From 2006 – 2010 Altair lived and worked in London as a freelance arts writer and press officer, and in various arts management and administration roles including for the Arts Council England, TATE etc. Magazine and the Tree House Gallery, Regents Park. In early 2010 Altair moved to Sydney, where she worked as an art project manager for ARTCELL and was the coordinator of a three-year NSW State Government arts and cultural project from 2011 – 2014. In Sydney, she also wrote regularly about Australian and New Zealand contemporary visual art and ceramics for both national and international arts publications including Art News, Art Review, Artlink, The Australian Journal of Ceramics and Ceramics and Art & Perception (USA), as well as receiving writing commissions from visual artists and galleries. In mid 2014 Altair was the recipient of an Australian Government Visual Arts Career Development Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts, to undertake an arts writing residency at DRAWInternational in the Tarn-et- Garonne, Occitanie, France. Following this experience, she settled permanently in south-west France in 2015, also obtaining a diploma in English language training in Toulouse.
In France, Altair currently works independently providing artist career consultations and guidance, writing and translation services, and specialised advice and assistance for the international art world. Since 2016 she has been coordinating English communication training and workshops for visual artists and professionals at the BBB Centre d’art, Toulouse. From 2018 – 2021 she was also co-founder/director of Art Talk Write a France based bilingual visual arts career service. Altair continues her work as a critic and remains connected to both the New Zealand and Australian art scenes, as part of her own critical writing practice she is also developing a series of collaborative artistic projects in France.
Altair lives and works between the Lot department and Toulouse, Occitanie.