Ngarino Ellis (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou) is a professor in art history at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland. Her latest book is Toi Te Mana: An Indigenous History of Maori Art (2024) co-written with Deidre Brown and Jonathan Mane-Wheoki won the Bookhub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction at the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

Her monograph A Whakapapa of Tradition: 100 Years of Ngāti Porou Carving, 1830–1930 (Auckland University Press, 2016) won several awards including the Judith Binney Best First Book at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and Best Māori Art Book at the Ngā Kupu Ora Awards: Celebrating Māori Books and Journalism, 2017.

She co-edited Te Puna: Māori Art from Te Tai Tokerau / Northland (Reed, 2007) with Deidre Brown, and Te Ata: Māori Art from the East Coast, New Zealand (Reed, 2002) with Witi Ihimaera.

Ngarino has also collaborated as a curator, including Whakawhanaungatanga: Connecting People and Taonga (Linden Museum, Stuttgart, 2022–24) with Dougal Austin, Awhina Tamarapa and Justine Treadwell, and Pūrangiaho: Seeing Clearly (Auckland Art Gallery, 2001) with Ngahiraka Mason and Kahutoi Te Kanawa.