Robyn E. Kenealy is a comic book artist and organiser in the New Zealand art communities. She is based in Wellington, and had a role in establishing the 91 Aro St Gallery, organising the New Zealand Comics Weekend and the Eric Awards. Kenealy's early works, Influenza in Wellington and Love Ain't Easy, were predominantly autobiographical comics. Her later work Roddy's Film Companion marks a distinct shift from this style. Although Roddy's Film Companion is biographical, it is also fictional and frequently acknowledges the limitations of 'truth' and 'fact' in historical research. These themes are continued in Steve Rogers' American Captain, an autobiographical comic told from the perspective of Captain America's alter-ego.
Roddy's Film Companion
From 2005 to 2011 Kenealy produced Roddy's Film Companion, a semi-fictional/biographical comic about the life of the actor Roddy McDowall, whose most well-known role was playing Cornelius in Planet of the Apes. Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Joseph Mankiewicz and Darryl Zanuck also feature in the comics. However, Roddy's Film Companion is not so much concerned with presenting an accurate portrait of Roddy McDowall's life, but rather with interrogating the limits of 'truth' and 'reality' in biographies through fictionalisation. As Kenealy writes on her website, "Roddy's Film Companion is a one half semi-fictionalbiography comic of child star cum character actor Roddy McDowall and one half a musing on the phenomenon of celebrity itself, as applied to both author and subject." The first issue, released in 2006, is set while Roddy was filming the Darryl Zanuck production of Cleopatra. In late 2008 she started uploading Roddy's Film Companion to the internet. Kenealy won the award for the best cartoon in the 2009 ASPA awards with The Darkroom weekly serial which appeared in Salient Magazine. Dylan Horrocks, one of the judges, wrote that Kenealy's comics have "all kinds of smarts going on just below the surface." Tim Bollinger wrote that The Darkroom has "smart conversational language and pen-and-ink-wash visual narrative."
Steve Rogers' American Captain
Steve Rogers' American Captain is an autobiographical comic told from the perspective of Captain America's alter-ego, Steve Rogers. Its title is a reference to American Splendor and American Elf.. It has been featured in New York magazine.
Arts organiser
Kenealy and her husband Richard Whyte curate the ongoing art collectionThe Wayfarer Gallery based in Wellington's Wayfarer Library, archiving Wellington experimental art. It currently owns more than 200 works from artists such as Rick Jensen, GCR, Brent Willis, Tao Wells, Mark Whyte, Smiley, Sam Stephens, and many others. In 2004 they collaborated with others to open the 91 Aro Street Gallery, another Wellington outlet for independent arts. 91 Aro Street sold and exhibited comics, cassette tapes, CDs, books, films, paintings, photographs, pictures, glass work from New Zealand experimental artists. It was open for twelve months while they held the lease on the premises and held more than 20 exhibitions. It was during 2005 that 91 Aro St was the venue for the first New Zealand Comics Weekend, a weekend devoted to the exhibition and celebration of New Zealand comics. Since then Kenealy has been the major organiser of this event in 2006 and contributed to the 2007 event, organised by cartoonists DRAW and Tim Bollinger. The 2006 event also included the Eric Awards, an independently judged New Zealand comic awards. Robyn and Dick hosted the event, which also featured stand-up comedianDarren Schroeder as the MC. In 2010 Kenealy organized the 5thNew Zealand Comics Weekend at The Basement Gallery in Wellington, New Zealand. In 2009, Kenealy was the spokesperson for the Concerned Citizens exhibition and art event, which raised funds and awareness for those arrested in the 2007 New Zealand raids. It contained work by many artists including Tame Iti, Campbell Kneale, and Kenealy herself; which were auctioned by Nándor Tánczos and John Minto.
Robyn featured in the 2004 Toby Donald and Dick Whyte documentary, Boys Suck: Throw Rocks at Them first screened at the New Zealand Comics Weekend at 91 Aro St Gallery, later to be released on DVD. The documentary followed Robyn and fellow comic artist G.C.R. to the Eric Awards in 2004. Kenealy also appeared in Elric Kane and Alexander Greenhough's 2004 independent feature filmMurmurs, set in a bohemian Wellington subculture. These films are considered part of the Aro Valley film movement. She was interviewed by Shirley Horrocks in her documentary The Comics Show, which screened at the 2007 New Zealand International Film Festival.
Other activities
Kenealy also plays guitar and banjo, makes conceptual art, dabbles in painting and haiku, has written short stories, and is currently writing a novel.
