The 2017–18 exhibition

11 November 2017 – 25 February 2018

This exhibition celebrated ten years of Sculpture in the Gardens with works that took the viewer on a journey of discovery. Amongst the bronzes was Lucy Bucknall’s howling wolf, Phil Neary’s charm bracelet of trinkets and Samantha Lissette’s groups of promenading critters out for a garden walk. Andrea Gardner and Brit Bunkley’s Peaceable Kingdom where fauna adorn the scene created a mood of harmonious co-existence.

Sometimes it is hard to see the wood for the trees, so it pays to have a vantage point. Wanda Gillespie introduced large roly-poly figures into a glade with wooden wind chimes to clank out some wisdom in the Master and Teacher. In a glade could be seen Sam Duckor-Jones’ ceramic big friendly giants, on the look-out for Jamie Pickernell’s Gull Boy, and Bryn Jones’ fibreglass figure gazed at his own reflection in what could be dismay in Survey. In amongst the flowers stood Ramón Robertson’s cement figure, trying to blend in atop a wooden post, but looking decidedly odd in his seedy pants, surreptitiously introducing unregulated species to the environment.

Containment and invasion are concepts that the gardener grapples with daily, and these are subtly alluded to in Louise Purvis’ galvanised steel Gravid which looped and curved over many metres. For John Edgar, it was always about the geology, and his basalt Font marked out Auckland’s volcanic foundations. Jim Wheeler’s Golden Bough harked back to traditional legends, adorning its upright support like a brooch, while Christine Massey honoured the nurturing of mothers with her bronze trinkets hung out to line-dry. In his installation, Anthony Cribb made reference to how we manipulate nature to human will. David Carson’s Splitting Head Ache used the trunk of a Robinia pseudoacacia to evoke a dendrological bad hair day. There was a conservation message in Graham Bennett’s denotation of impending environmental catastrophe in On Becoming Misdirected. Thousands of dog tags hung from a tree commemorate the New Zealand servicemen who served in the Vietnam War in Donna Sarten’s Strange Fruit (Revised).

Continuing her practice of making reference to modernist idioms, Natalie Guy hoisted Party, Party, her homage to the Sputnik-inspired revolving coat hanger from the 1960s. There was plenty of bounce in Lang Ea’s Pop! Bang! Boom!, and on the upper lake Jeff Thomson and Bev Goodwin got their groove on with Twist, Bob and Spin.

The artists participating in 2017 were: Graham Bennett, Lucy Bucknall, David Carson, Anthony Cribb, Sam Duckor-Jones, Lang Ea, John Edgar, Andrea Gardner and Brit Bunkley, Wanda Gillespie, Bev Goodwin and Jeff Thomson, Natalie Guy, Bryn Jones, Samantha Lissette, Christine Massey, Phil Neary, Jamie Pickernell, Louise Purvis, Ramón Robertson, Donna Turtle Sarten, Jim Wheeler, and Jeff Thomson.