Arborworlds
Within ecology it is the fragile balance of things that counts. Bing Dawe’s sculpture presents us with a similar visual ecology – forms cast in bronze caught in a dance of fine line in space. We stand before his delicate and intimate sculptures, witness the interaction of small fish and plants, and wonder at cycles of life and death – a visual poetry that is poised and quietly insistent in the telling.
This exhibition of works had its genesis in a description of an old method of trapping migrating eel elvers (tunariki), from the book by R.M. Mc Dowall titled “Ikawai – Freshwater fishes in Maori culture and economy”.
This method involved the creation of a tight ball of brushwood, which was weighted and submerged in areas of still water. The elvers gathered in these balls, which were later recovered, and the eels harvested for food. This image of fish in trees resonated with me and formed the beginning of a series of works titled “Towards Repair”, which has continued in this series “Arborworlds”.
This has been a meandering but nonetheless enjoyable exploration of a range of idea intermingling imagery to do with our native fish, trees, waterways, human intervention, and the pull of the moon.
