Ross Liew

Ross Liew is an artist and arts producer. He also works under the name TrustMe, as a street artist and founding member of Cut Collective, a group of Tāmaki Makaurau-based street artists who formed in the early 2000s. In addition to his own artistic practice, Liew works as a curator, project manager, presenter and producer — creating opportunities for artists to contribute to public spaces and bringing attention to Aotearoa creatives.

Liew grew up in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, and started his public art practice around the Ponsonby and Grey Lynn area. He connected with other street artists in the city, saying that he “found solace in making things for the public, for an audience who didn't choose to seek it out.” With his friends and collaborators — street artists Component, Enforce1, and Flox — Liew created Cut Collective. The collective was formalised in 2006 and began to be sought out for murals, graphic design, and other bespoke creative services. The collective used these activities to fund their own public art projects. In 2012, the collective decided to conclude their business activity so that they could focus on their individual practices — and returned to being an informal group of like-minded artists, as it was when they first connected.

In his practice, Liew cycles between focusing on his own practice and working with others to contribute to the wider creative community, which he describes as “transitioning from Cultivator to Creator,” saying:

every 5 or so years I move between focusing on cultivating the creative ecology around me through coordination, project management, advocacy, curation, programming and general facilitation, to focusing on my own making. I have had reservations when deep in a Cultivation cycle about finding my way back to a place where I am properly engaged in my own making practice and I now realise that it is always there waiting for me, I just need to be prepared to suck at it for a while when I pick it back up. Also I now realise that these two things exist simultaneously no matter how hard I try to be singular in my focus.

Liew’s mother is Pākehā and his father is Malaysian Chinese, from a Hakka family who moved to Malaysia around 1900. During an artist residency at Rimbun Dahan in Kuala Lumpur in 2018, Liew visited Seri Kambangan, the village where his family were forcefully relocated during the Malayan Emergency following World War II. Some of his own artwork engages with this personal history, such as kè kǔ nài láo (刻苦耐劳), which has been shown in restaurants, food courts and laneway spaces in Tāmaki Makaurau and Pōneke. The work features ‘Good Morning’ tea towels, bearing the idiom 刻苦耐劳 (to bear hardships and work hard), which speaks to the adversity and hard work of migrant generations past.

Liew has undertaken many projects in the role of a community liaison, curator, public space activator, and project manager. He has worked with Auckland Council to manage place-making projects, developed public art strategies, delivered public art for commercial developers, and worked on The Karangahape Identity Project (2018-2020) for the Karangahape Road Business Association. He also helped develop the strategic direction for the OnShore exhibition held annually at O Peretu Fort Takapuna and programmed visual art for festivals such as Splore. Underlying these many roles and projects is Liew’s interest in the role that artists can play in contributing to the built environment and the quality of community life in these spaces. He is also a former chair of the Karangahape Road Business Association and former chair of APAPPA, the Advisory Panel for Art In Public Places, Auckland.

In 2020, Liew worked with artist Shane Cotton to translate Cotton’s artworks into a five-storey-high mural in the Britomart precinct, as part of the exhibition Toi Tū Toi Ora, curated by Nigel Borell and presented by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. He also collaborated with fellow artist Hayley King (Flox) on a mural project in Roxburgh that tells the migration and settlement stories of the area and aims “to foster a sense of belonging for seasonal workers working in the Teviot Valley.” The mural is accompanied by a book and other teaching resources for Year 1–3 students, supporting them to explore the question, “Who are the people who are connected to your community? How could you help people who live in your place feel like they are welcome and belong?”

Screen production has been another creative avenue for Liew. He was a producer and director of the web series If These Walls Could Talk (2014–15), which featured Aotearoa graffiti and street artists and was funded by NZ On Air. In 2007, he was one of the presenters of The Gravy, a series made for TVNZ by Sticky Pictures. The award-winning series showcased over 170 Aotearoa creatives across 52 episodes. Liew now sits on the governing board of Script To Screen Te Tari Tuhi Kupu A Whakaahua.

Ross Liew’s website

Ross Liew on Instagram

Ross Liew: artist interview — Oryza

Carving a space for Chinese artists at Auckland's Mercury Plaza — Re:

Streets ahead with the Cut Collective — NZ Herald

The Gravy — NZ On Screen

As curator:

2013–ongoing — All Fresco Street Art Festival, Karangahape Road, Tāmaki Makaurau
2011–2020 — Graffiato Street Art Festival, Taupō
2013–19 — Splore Festival, Tapapakanga Regional Park, Tāmaki Makaurau
2016–2018 — New Zealand Sculpture OnShore, Fort Takapuna, Tāmaki Makaurau
2007 — Funky Razors, ST Paul St Gallery and Te Tuhi, Tāmaki Makaurau, artist and curator

As artist:

2023 — Shift: An Urban Art Takeover, Canterbury Museum, Ōtautahi
2020 — Public Access 6, Taupō Museum, Taupō, as Cut Collective
2011 — Illegal Tender, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Ōtepoti, as Cut Collective
2009 — Common Ground, Dowse Art Museum, Te Awakairangi ki Tai, as Cut Collective with ViaGrafik

As producer and director:

2015 — If These Walls Could Talk (web series)

2018 — Artist in residence, Rimbun Dahan, Kuala Lumpur, supported by the Asia New Zealand Foundation

2017 — Artist in residence, Off the Grid, Muriwai

2015 — Vancouver Web Fest: Official Selection (If These Walls Could Talk)

2013 — Auckland Arts Regional Trust: ART Venture Award

2007 — Metro Magazine: Metro Young Photographer of the Year