Written by Aaron Frater (TLC Tutor)

The fourth biannual ShapeShifter show held at the Civic Gardens and The NewDowse in Lower Hutt is a sculpture exhibition that runs during the New Zealand International Arts Festival. It has grown over the past 10 years to be a major visual arts event, one of the country’s premier outdoor sculpture exhibitions and an important charitable event for the Hutt Valley.

The show, which runs from Friday 26 February to Sunday 21 March 2010, features sculptures from over 60 artists including top New Zealand sculptors Para Matchitt, Don Driver, Graham Bennett, Tanya Ashken, Peter Nicholls, as well as exciting emerging artists. The sculptures are chosen by the ShapeShifter artistic director and director of The NewDowse art museum, Cam McCracken are in a wide variety of mediums and a range of scale.

After many years of putting in applications for this show, I was lucky enough to be selected for the 2010 event. So I guess I am one of the emerging sculptors. The body of work I have been creating, alongside a number of other series of works, are based around the idea of symbols and signs, using a specific material to realise them. The nature of the barrier mesh material is integral to the works. The mesh is luridly bright, bold, takes up space in a virtual kind of way, and yet is more holes than substance. This form / no-form dichotomy is a hallmark of, and something I love about this industrial product used as an art material.  The space in the mesh is an integral or even dominant part of the work.

The safety mesh is a grid, a manufactured woven pattern that is designed to warn the viewer away from dangers, yet it grabs attention and draws one in with its intense colour. A business suit is similar, a barrier. It keeps the corporate warrior safe. It can keep people out, make a statement of rank and demarcate socio economic and cultural boundaries. Are the identities these costumes confer upon human’s solid or primarily empty space? Are they just made up of socio cultural historical norms?  Is a suit perhaps like barrier mesh?  More hole than mass – like the space between protons and electrons in atoms? Physical matter in this view is more empty space than mass.

The layers of meaning in material, construction, and subject matter leave them open to interpretation. They are signs, or symbols – they are not naturalistic. The construction of these works is akin to upholstery or tailoring,  referencing form and function as such practical crafts as these do. I am neither a tailor nor a costumer. I am a sculptor versed in many forms of three dimensional arts making seeking a way to express some of what it is to be human in the 21^st century.

The opportunity to show these works in a public space as ShapeShifter allows is a great way for me to put these ideas out for many to engage with. A public show with the level of publicity of this one means many people will see them, interact with them and comment on them. This can be quite hard, opening up ones work to all comers, but its part of the art game. I find too that the growth in my work tends to come after people have seen it and given me feedback. I digest and filter it, and it informs aspects of my work. I still have to stay true to my ideas, but art is a visual communication and it is as much a dialogue as a monologue.

26 February – 21 March 2010
Open 10am-5pm daily and Thursdays 10am-8pm

NEWDOWSE LINK