About
About Patronage
Patronage is a free place for artists in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia to find grants, residencies, commissions and open calls, and to keep one portfolio and CV that works for every application. Arts organisations use it to post opportunities, take applications and keep a record of each round.
Why Patronage exists
Artists don’t need another place to upload their work and wait for someone to buy it. They need more reasons for the work to be made.
I started Patronage because I kept running into the same problem as an artist: finding opportunities to actually make work.
I built a system to collect grants, residencies, commissions, exhibitions, competitions and other opportunities in one place. Then I realised the opportunity itself could become the reason artists build a profile. Instead of asking artists to join another marketplace and hope something happens, Patronage starts with the opportunity.
- 01
An organisation creates an opportunity.
- 02
Artists apply.
- 03
The work gets made.
- 04
The artist’s profile and application record make the next opportunity easier.
For artists
Build one profile and reuse it. Search arts grants, residencies and open calls from New Zealand, Australia and overseas, and apply with the details you already have.
For organisations
Post a commission, residency or open call. Artists apply through your own questions, you move them through your own stages, and nothing is sent to applicants until you say so. The record stays when the round ends.
Who runs it
Patronage is built and run independently by Blake Aitken, an architectural designer, artist and founder of Patronage, in Aotearoa New Zealand. His Patronage profile is here too.
Patronage began inside my own practice. In 2025 I placed 100 abandoned road cones in Te Komititanga Square in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, each with a QR code linking to patronage.nz. The work, You’ve Walked Past Me So Many Times, drew 2,500 QR conversions and coverage in Stuff and on The Breeze 93.4FM, and was included in The Spinoff’s 2025 road cone retrospective.
Questions, ideas or a round you would like to run: email blake@patronage.nz, call +64 27 536 4850, or find us on Instagram.