2003
Steel Life Exhibition, 2003, 8 figures, 16x6x6” (40x15x15cm) each, cast glass, steel and ceramic
Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui, Bath Street Gallery, Auckland, NZ
In this project I use the genre of portraiture to represent the ordinary everyday person. These sculptures represent a definite person and at the same time characterize the ‘common’ man or women. I want to capture them, freeze them in their important-unimportant existence. I want to raise them on a plinth and give them a quasi-important status.
Juxtaposed with the figures are stained glass television sets. Their trivial subject matter glows in the space presenting the strangely familiar. Television gives them contact with the wider world – to mediate their relationship to it. The 6 o’clock news brings the world into the living room. There’s a religiosity about this relationship with television. Hours are set aside for worship – the 6 o’clock sermon. It purports to bring us closer to the world in the same way that attending church or saying prayers is seen by many to bring them closer to God.