Dan Arps was awarded Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the University of Canterbury’s School of Fine Arts in 2000, a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts in 2006, and a Doctor of Fine Arts from Elam in 2014. In 2010, he won Aotearoa’s premier contemporary art award, the Walter’s Prize, for his exhibition Explaining Things. Arps has exhibited extensively in Aotearoa and internationally. His work was included in Abject Failures (2018), Hastings City Art Gallery, Space Suit (2018), Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Necessary Distraction: A Painting Show (2015–16), Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Local Knowledge (2011), the Dowse Art Museum, and the São Paulo Art Biennial (2004).