Vanish

2008
Installation view, 160 glazed stoneware figures ranging from 1.4 m down to 0.4m in height, Connells Bay Sculpture Park, Waiheke Island, New Zealand

Vanish is the largest self-portrait work from a series of sculptures I have been working on for the last four years. This series of works began with the sculptural installation I appear and disappear in 2003. Vanish consists of 160 ceramic figures. There are 10 sets of 16 figures; each set of 10 is glazed in a different colour and the size of the figures vary from 140 cm for the biggest ones down to about 30cm for the smallest ones. The figures are positioned to start with the largest ones at the bottom/front of the site and the smallest ones on the top/back of the site. It is my aim that the work will activate the space by changing perspective points. An exaggerated perspective is created when walking up the valley towards the work yet when approaching the work from the back it fans out from the vanishing point. This depends on which way the viewer approaches the work. Essentially Vanish is a humanist work that paradoxically depends on the point of view of the observer; it suggests both the fragility of a particular art form and human life itself.