New Zealand artist Neil Dawson's public sculptures defy the weight of his medium, appearing as seemingly weightless sculptures that float in the sky.
Read MoreDawson was born in Christchurch, New Zealand. He received his Diploma in Fine Arts (Honours) from Canterbury University in 1970 and later received a Graduate Diploma in Sculpture from Melbourne's Victorian College of the Arts in 1973.
Dawson has worked as a sculptor since the 1980s. In 2003, he was honoured as an Arts Laureate by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand. He was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2004.
Neil Dawson's sculptures are marked by a playful quality that seems to defy the conventions of the medium. Primarily working across steel, aluminium, and carbon fibre, his public interventions appear weightless, acting as optical illusions.
The artist's early sculptures were largely graphic in their rendition. Often suspended from high vantage points, these works appear as if they were drawings made onto the sky. Some examples of Dawson's earlier works include Echo (1982), which looks like a simple illustration of a house floating in the air when viewed from certain perspectives; Ripples (1987), a two-dimensional rendition of waves; and Snap (1992), which appears as a drawing of trees installed upside down.
Horizons (1994) was one of the first sculptures commissioned by Gibbs Farm sculpture park in Makarau. This sculpture rests atop one of the highest points of the property with a massive size of 15 metres in height and 36 metres in length. Much like his earlier work, this sculpture has a cartoonish, graphic, and Pop art quality to it, appearing as a windblown piece of paper gently resting on a hill.
Another of his public sculptures, Fanfare (2004), has become a permanent structure towering over the Canterbury Plains. Standing at six storeys tall, the work travelled from Sydney, where it was first installed on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, until finally arriving at its permanent location in Christchurch in 2015. Fanfare is covered with interlinked 1.5-metre steel pinwheel fans, creating a spherical structure illuminated by several colours at night.
Dawson has also created sculptures for international institutions. Globe (1989) was commissioned by Centre Pompidou in Paris for their exhibition Magiciens de la Terre of the same year. This sculpture hung suspended over the plaza facing the museum and through its installation appeared as if it was floating in the air.
Neil Dawson's sculptures have been featured and exhibited in sculpture gardens, motorways, and public plazas. His work has been installed in Wellington, Manchester, Kuala Lumpur, and Osaka. In 2000, he was commissioned to create a sculpture for the Stadium of Australia for the Sydney Olympics.
Arianna Mercado | Ocula | 2022
