Nelson College art teacher Irvine Major was encouraging and inspiring – showing catalogues he’d collected overseas of contemporary exhibitions, a fascinating insight, especially Hans Bellmer. Friends Paul Tulloch, Murray Hedwig and Philip Clairmont and I were well prepared for tertiary Art School. Philip’s (somewhat alternative) art-focused upbringing contrasted with my more conservative home environment – an eye-opener. However, my parents were supportive of my desire to venture south to Canterbury University’s Art School (Ilam).

The open-ended nature of Art School was not what I had imagined. I secured a place in the 4th year Honours group with Mark Adams, Boyd Webb and Phil Clairmont; but for various reasons I finished the year feeling somewhat conflicted and disillusioned, uncertain about my direction.Of the teachers, I had respect for Don Peebles, and the few personal exchanges we had after 5pm were particularly thought-provoking. Doris Lusk’s St Mark’s Square series exhibited around that time was inspirational, and I lunched at Bill Sutton’s place several times where his approach to life and the domestic environment made me think: ‘I want some of this’ – the integration of art with living and way of being – purpose-built, the smell of oil paint, an abundance of books. Perhaps it was a mistake that the spirited critiques of teacher Tom Taylor, although encouraging, didn’t persuade me to major in sculpture.

First Exhibition Chez Eelco Gallery
Nelson, 1966

At the end of the first year Chris Booth and I travelled to back to Nelson, aiming to look for work and stay with my parents. I scored a job at O’Connor’s dairy farm – stepped back in time, it was worked by a substantial team of Clydesdale horses.
I returned there each semester break – I loved it – slowtime, getting fit, hard physical work, and a stark contrast to the late 60s lifestyle of music, and a boundary-less existence at Art School.

O’Connor’s farm late 1960’s early 1970s

Teachers Training College followed, then nearly four years teaching at Riccarton High School. Seeing and encouraging the potential of young minds was satisfying – but the hours and intensity played havoc with my attempts at art practice.
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I was floundering even though I had exhibitions – one with (photographer) Mark Adams, and one with Michael Reed. Michael was to become my brother-in-law, and we went on to share a lifetime of intertwined pathways and exchanged observations of the art scene.

With Michael Reed 1970s

I married Paula Clemence; Mark Adams took our wedding photograph (one of few). Paula and I contrasted in many ways– she was academic, majoring in psychology and languages. Best of all, she was tolerant and cruisy - valuable traits.

Wedding 1972

I resigned from teaching which was impacting on my art practice. Few works of this period survived. I needed an escape. I did a crash course in German and we departed for Europe. We travelled extensively in our VW Kombivan, returning to London to teach, then further travel, ultimately settling for a significant period in Barcelona.

London was full on, so much to take in to refresh and expand an Antipodean viewpoint. Teaching jobs were easy to get but challenging to maintain. Artwork was largely figurative sketches about confined spaces and works based on notes made during travel. I indulged in the amazing array of museums, galleries and exhibitions, revelling in a huge Surrealist exhibition, where Bellmer’s dolls stood out. Richard Long, Francis Bacon, Joseph Albers, Lucy Rei impressed, also I hunted out Horst Janssen, Egon Shiele and Paul Wunderlich in Europe. There was even a brief encounter with David Hockney at a North London facility where I had been offered use of a darkroom.

Home base 1976 - 1979

With Bob Clemence in Granada

In Spain, Barcelona was a city in flux after the long rule of dictator Franco and the lingering ravages and injustices of the Civil War’s complexity and divisiveness. We were amid a transition to democracy (the first elections since Franco’s death in 1976), from the Spanish dominance of Madrid, to a sense of rising Catalan nationalism.

With Paula, Spain 1978

Studio a top Collegio Oak House Barcelona

We relished the Mercè Festival; Plaça Reial; 11 Septiembre Diada - national day. This was a time of euphoric marches, demonstrations, political arrests, uncertainties; national fervour, unpredictable ‘round-ups’, and high military presence from the armed Guardia Civil.

I took a position at Collegio Oak House, a private school teaching art to senior girls – at the centre was a fantastic 18th C house with a turret room overlooking the city, given to me for my studio.

We lived in an attic apartment in San Cugat, a small town with easy access to the vibrant city. It was a heady mix: the history, the architecture (notably contemporary work by Ricardo Bofil and of course Antoni Gaudi), coffees at Els Quatre Gats, the political tumult, and exhibitions by Tàpies and Miró. There was easy access to the Picasso Museum and the some what forlorn and abandoned Sagrada Familia.

Work here comprised drawings, experimental cut-outs and screen prints. My screens were prepared in a workshop set up for printing Miró’s work. Though we never met, the possibility added a certain gravitas. I gave private art classes to the British Ambassador’s children and the family of the governor of Deutsche Bank. A drawing, Thessoloniki was accepted for an international drawing show in the Fundació Miró (Miró Foundation).

George Orwell’s 1938 Homage to Cataluña helped me to get my head around the Civil War. Issues of identity seeped into our psyche, observing our Catalan friends’ attachment to the land, and how language and culture were embedded in their sense of place.

Last days at Oak House Studio

We relocated to Sydney and communal living with friends. The birth of our first child Greta brought new responsibility and the insecurity of fatherhood. I worked as a brickie’s labourer and then in a slew of tertiary teaching roles in five far-flung institutions. Despite living restrictions, I created new work; one was accepted by the Fundació Miró, Barcelona; prints were selected for a Sydney survey exhibition. The highlight was my first solo show at Art of Man Gallery, Paddington. An exhibition of drawings at Brooke Gifford Gallery in Christchurch encouraged ideas of returning home.

Back in New Zealand: like all who return from years away, there’s a strange realisation of being a small fish within the limitations of a small sea. The sense of remoteness played into future work.
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The New Zealand we arrived back to seemed very different to the country we left in the mid-70s; notably protest marches against racial discrimination in South African rugby. The anger, injustice, prejudice and division showed more shades of Catalonia than the New Zealand we thought we knew. A certain narrowness and stuffiness of Christchurch and its art scene in particular, made me doubt the wisdom of returning. But the desire persisted for some dirt, plants, space to work in and a place to stand for our family.
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Much of my artwork involved looking back, boxes of unfinished, unresolved studies, notes and ideas for the 3D expansion of them. Things New Zealand stood out – the smell of the bush, the origins and patterns of our small collection of woven harakeke kete (flax basket) and a reacquaintance with old favourites in museums.

With Greta and Joseph, 1982

I built a number of box containers into which I packed strips of flax – set on poles, hung from above or attached to walls. These were drawing props and formed the basis of new work – providing a link from where I was in my thinking, to where I was now geographically.

Framed drawings dominated my exhibitions – many were dark graphite and highly reflective when behind glass. Could/should reflection be an inherent part of my work?When/why does the work need a frame? So began an exploration of materials and techniques – cutouts, laminates, where the crossover between drawing and sculpture became blurred.

Exhibiting in Christchurch in the early 1980s was far fromviable financially so I accepted a half-time teaching position at Christchurch Polytechnic, a respected institution having previously employed Carl Sydow, Barry Cleavin and Neil Dawson. I taught drawing, printmaking, 3D studies amidst a dynamic group of active practitioners, including Michael Reed, Murray Hedwig, Bing Dawe, Cheryl Lucas, Dee Copland, Sandra Thomson, Ross Gray and Katharina Jaeger. This role kept things financially a float (just) for the next 20 years.

Tertiary teaching was rewarding – experimenting with approaches to drawing and design education, introducing ideas to motivated minds. It allowed time to make and exhibit work. I organised an artist in residence programme and looked for artists who would expand the commercial graphics-leaning programme and challenge student thinking.

Flax Box Model

Kete from our collection

The artists I secured with Arts Council funding were Robin White (printmaking), Peter Lange (ceramics), Kazu Nakagawa (wood, furniture), Cath Brown (weaving), Mika Ebata from Japan (sculpture and performance), and Wataru Hamasaka (sculpture, stone), with whom I would later collaborate across the Pacific. We reconnected with family and had regular escapes to the family bach, sand, sea and dinghies. It re-established the importance of the ocean and gave me time to think and draw.

At home with Japanese friends and Robin White

My first venture into public gallery exhibiting (with funding) came with an invitation from Dunedin Public Art Gallery. The 43 works were well received, despite (in retrospect) a need for more editing. It was an opportunity for me to see a cross section of my efforts to date, together in one space. We moved into a neglected villa and began 40 years of renovation. The ample roof space became a studio, supplementing the work zones in the garage and living rooms. Joseph was born into the chaos of that winter.

Upstairs studio Fisher Avenue under construction

My first show in Wellington was encouraging, at Louise Beale Gallery in Cuba Street (formerly Elva Bett), adjoining the Peter McLeavey Gallery.

Louise Beale wrote to us ‘critical comment from the public has been exceptional. I’ve been proud to be associated with the show and sold three yesterday making a total of 6 sold which for a new name and work in the slightly “difficult” area is marvellous. X and X also keen to buy… The last work I sold was to Les Paris so you are in the best private collection in the country – he was extremely impressed and rarely buys work of an artist he has previously heard little of’.

Rob Taylor in The Dominion described the Louise Bealeshow as essential viewing: ‘He is interested in real planes of walls, doorways, recesses and projections, and the planes of shadows and contrasting light. Then there is the contrasting complication of the reflective and transparent surfaces of windows…

‘He explores the nature of drawing as process, and the nature of drawings as objects that hang on architectural walls, and the nature of walls as structural surfaces that accumulate the mystery of contrasting textures.’

Working with University Free Theatre, established by Peter Falkenberg in Christchurch, was a step out of my comfort zone. It introduced me to another side of 3-dimensional art and having to function at a variety of levels. The philosophy of this group, based on the German model, was challenging. The production 1984 and the Orwellian dystopia was stimulating.

Part of 3-level stage set for 1984

A QEII Arts Council Grant enabled me to push the 3D resolution of my ideas – drawings challenging the restrictions of frames, becoming cut-outs, and then experiments with laminates, initially as polyurethane and resin coatings on wood. Reviewer Brett Riley noted ‘Bennett’s interest lies with the ambiguities associated with the combination of illusionary third dimension with actual third dimensionality’. The underpinning philosophy: what we see, what we think we see, and what is there.

Regular solo exhibitions and involvement in group shows had become the norm. Laminates of polyester resins now replaced the system of folded and attached acrylic sheets – it was liberating.

Fibre-glass components

Reviewers John Hurrell (1985, Christchurch) and Ian Wedde (1986, Wellington) provided positive commentary and insights — sometimes provocative — for me to chew over.

There were several firsts this year including a public art gallery solo exhibition in Christchurch and my first showing in Auckland (Five Printmakers).

Installing Parameters

Marian Maguire lithography at Limeworks

Parameters at the Robert McDougall Gallery (now Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū) enabled me to present large scale experiments with folded laminates– a big change from working with little bits of paper in the back of a van in Europe. I realised the potential of large-scale sculpture to express my ideas.

Recent Work followed at Carnegie Centre, Dunedin, with smaller works evolving from Parameters, then I exhibited wall-mounted, 3D laminate works at Louise Beale in Wellington.

This project marked the start of an enduring friendship with John Freeman-Moir, a social theorist at Canterbury University. He approached me out of the blue suggesting the text in my catalogues could be better crafted, showing me an alternative he’d written. I was fascinated by his particular way of viewing the world, his language, and knowledge and take on art; a refreshing dialogue began. It turned out he lived a few houses down the road. A regular, productive discourse ensued.

I continued printmaking, with a greater focus on lithography, producing a suite of over 30 with Marian Maguire at Limeworks (now PG Gallery) in the next few years.

A Residency at Nelson Polytechnic School of Visual Arts allowed me to focus on my art practice. I experimented with ideas in wood-fired ceramics using local materials including estuary mud in the glazes. Planning began for a large-scale experimental installation/intervention on the land, the Boulder Bank as a focal point.
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I met Gavin Hitchings and Nick Channon among the tutorial staff there – all people with other ways of seeing, and other skill sets, initiating lively dialogue and long art friendships. My materials budget enabled me to hire a helicopter to extend the documentation of the Boulder Bank work. I observed it from a boat, drew, walked along it, flew over it, filmed, and drew from video.

The Suter Public Gallery in Nelson exhibited work from this residency; Felicity Milburn curated an exhibition of the same work at Christchurch Art Gallery’s Annex. By then, I was giving input into national directions on Polytechnics’ approach to drawing for design, and lecturing on approaches to design for the New Zealand Craft Council. Not everyone agreed with my views, but it got them talking.

In a step into the unknown we visited Japan for an extended period in 1989 which heralded the beginning of a long association. Paula and I took Greta aged 9 and Jo, 7, to Kyoto. I loved looking at Japan through the kids’ eyes; the experience was heightened by their observations. A visit to the 17th Century Imperial Palace Kyoto Gosho was arranged by a young exchange student whose father was the keeper of the Royal China and we spent time in their traditional house in the inner grounds.

Family at Kimura’s home Kyoto, Japan

Collaboration with master printmaker Masao Ohba

Many introductions resulted from a house exchange with Akiko Hayashi, a Kyoto jewellery artist, who had stayed with us in Christchurch. She was very direct, and gave us clear, and rare, insights into Japanese ways and customs, plus, very formal letters of introduction to several artists.
She even gave us gifts of her own jewellery to present to them. These connections led to invitations by significant dealer galleries to exhibit in Japan over the next decade. A relationship with master printer Masao Ohba resulted in a series of collaborative prints, hospitality and support for my ventures in Japan. I organised four exhibitions for him in New Zealand where he gave public demonstrations of his unique printmaking methods.

My Friend, Masao Ohba

In response My Friend, Graham Bennett

For a 10-metre trial installation on the Boulder Bank in 1990, four units were ferried out on a yacht. I then secured QEII Arts Council funding for the resulting 40-metre installation Sea/Sky/Stone, supported with contributions from local industry. This put me into new territory in the logistically complex, with a raft of permissions and consents from local Māori, the Department of Conservation, Harbour Board, Nelson City Council. We built a trailer to transport the work 480km from Christchurch to Nelson, towed it up in third gear in the middle of a winter night. This time a helicopter lifted the 20 units and rails across the water. Documenting this installation and its relationship to the land became the prime focus – leading to many new works.

Assembly on the Boulder Bank

I camped out with friends, sometimes in the lighthouse, to witness and document alignment of Sea/Sky/Stone with the rising sun and its echo of NZ’s southwest to nort east trajectory. Photographer Murray Hedwig captured the definitive shots. Despite the isolation and inaccessibility, about 50 people took the barge to the solstice ‘launch’ and rumour had it another 200 people made the effort by boat or 13-kilometre walk to directly experience Sea/Sky/Stone. Weather incidents over the 60-day installation proved the importance of employing an engineer. With this project I came to realise I could not do everything myself.

Examples of collaborations with Gavin Hitchings: Sculpture and screen print. Modifying the Relationship, Stones of Unknowing

Sea/Sky/Stone was disassembled after 60 days. Re-establishing the work, now with a patina of rust, in the main gallery at The Suter involved some more delicate manoeuvring – drilling through outer stone walls to fix the tensioning brackets. Public reaction was mixed.

Sea/Sky/Stone The Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatū

This installation saw the beginning of consciously using rust in my work – with connotations of the temporary nature of manmade materials in juxtaposition with the ancient earth. As with other works, it was important the rusting began specifically with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, Te Moananui-a-Kiwa.

A highlight over this time was an offer by Richard Nunns (a national authority on Māori instruments) through jeweller Gavin Hitchings to go to the Rush Pools where early Māori took Boulder Bank boulders to use as hammerstones to split pakohe (argillite) for tools. In a haunting recital, Richard played one of his pakohe Taonga Pūoro from across the pool, the sound rising through the pocket of bird-filled native bush.

Collaboration with Gavin Hitchings — his different perspectives on scale, materials and concepts — reinforced the value of sharing to expand thinking and push outside my comfort zone, to step into new territories. Over subsequent years the challenges we set ourselves and each other regarding scale and materials in particular were realised in print, jewellery, small and large sculptures. The Sea/Sky/Stone installation provided the catalyst for art works in a range of scale and media – prints, drawing and sculpture were exhibited in numerous group shows across the nation. A solo show at Jonathan Jensen Gallery, Christchurch, capped off a busy year.

Sea/Sky/Stone was ultimately placed in three other very different contexts documenting the way the reflective panels register the landscapes they occupy. The open section of the frame presents the view forward; the reflective panel looks back. In the Suter Gallery’s formal internal display space it sat uneasily reflecting the viewers; the Archery Lawn in Christchurch Botanic Gardens reflected the formal manicured garden scape; the Floodwall in Greymouth, a protective levee against the sea, reflected the poorly located town. A question at the heart of the work is ‘what is this place?’ Where have we been, where are we going, what have we done? We build, contain, control, cover, dig, pillage.

The 1989 introductions in Japan came to fruition with the first exhibition in Gallery Miyabi, Japan, beginning a productive association through the 1990s, resulting in 12 exhibitions in nine different locations. Work in a new cultural context poses lots of questions. In presenting work where few spoke English explanations were minimal– reinforcing my conviction that the work stands on its own. Exhibitions were well attended but there was an odd feeling – what do they see in it, what are they thinking? It prompted me to look at my work with fresh eyes. New Zealand, Japan – two island nations in the same ocean, but very different. The Japanese identified with and respected my love for and engagement with my land. My gifts such as engraved Boulder Bank pebbles were received with reverence. Acknowledging the generosity of my hosts was not without significant thought, given the tradition of reciprocity.

Hugh Bannerman of Dilana Rugs had approached me in the late 1980s when I was doing Boulder Bank aerial views. A floor-based work interested me, along with the process of simplifying and adapting ideas to suit the hand tufting techniques involved in soft, pliable textiles – a change from the familiar steel and stone. I exhibited seven different rugs in Japan. I found it surprising most sold, given the irtradition of tatami floor covering. But the rugs seemed to fit with a contemporary Japanese domestic aesthetic. Reaction in the gallery was striking as it included not only feeling with feet, but also sitting and lying on them. The first of two exhibitions at Miyazaki Gallery, Osaka, was in 1993 before the devastating Kobe earthquake (1995) led to the demise of this well-respected contemporary art space and many other dealer galleries.

Gallery Miyazaki, Osaka (1993)

A selection: 6 of 18 rugs completed 1988-2003 at Dilana Rugs Studio Christchurch

In Christchurch, the steel and reflective glass set-design for Free Theatre production of Salome was a unique sculptural experiment – the set was designed and in place before rehearsals began. Interpretation of the play, actors’ and stage-set movements, and lighting all evolved together. The kinetic set gave potential for the actors to climb, rotate, and be rotated: art as a stage dynamic. The set casts shadows and reflected light – obscured or reflected actors, and reflected fragments of the audience, placing them on the stage. Sculpture involves movement – usually of the viewer – but here, the viewer is static with a moving set initiated by actors.

The experimental, unpredictable philosophy of the group and the concept of theatre as challenge embraced the notion: ‘If you confront the audience they will think more’ (Bertolt Brecht). I kept the experience of Butoh – a form of Japanese dance theatre – in the back of my mind. Later sets included Mahagonny, Sophocles’ Electra, and a Free Theatre production of Peter Falkenberg’s Crusoe.

Model for Salome stage set

Salome - Performance

With a Visual Arts Fellowship I took work to Japan. A total of 54 works went to two separate exhibitions and five venues. Air New Zealand celebrated the opening of the new Kansai Airport and a direct link to Osaka with an exhibition of four New Zealand artists who had direct links with Japan. The Kobe earthquake saw this shifted to Mie Prefecture Contemporary Art Museum. An exhibition of my work at the NZ Embassy in Tokyo ran concurrently. Leaving the Embassy in the early mornings I watched the city come to life from a nearby coffee shop — marvelling at the daily fluctuation of millions of people — the huge lung that is Shibuya Crossing heaving in and out. NZ Arts Council recognition and that of the Embassy confirmed my status for the Japanese — excellent contacts ensued. By the end of 1995 I was selling more work in Japan than in New Zealand, though changing economic times curtailed this.

Sea/Sky/Kaipara, my first major commission, was for Alan Gibbs for his then-fledgling sculpture park, The Farm. My work joined that of Chris Booth and Neil Dawson — at the beginning of an initiative to celebrate New Zealand sculpture in a context of the best in the world. My proposal included an animated video (then uncommon) of frames on the landscape, an elaborate model, and the usual conceptual and technical drawings. The bar was lifted, expectations raised for the future.

At Canterbury Museum, I expanded my knowledge of cultural overlays within Aotearoa. I was fascinated by models of waka (canoes) and material on the transit of Venus, celestial navigation and Pacific stick maps, and early cultural exchanges. This, coupled with discovery of the diary of my ancestors’ journey from Nova Scotia to New Zealand in 1864, highlighted us as a nation of voyagers. The Canterbury Museum allowed me to make surface rubbings (1995 – 2003) of ancient Pacific artefacts, made for trade, which later influenced and emerged in sculptures like Hidden Depths.

Graphite rubbing (detail) Fijian club

Extract from family diary December 1864

Roger Fyfe at Canterbury Museum

The installation Demarcation on the Boulder Bank required intensive preparation and family support. Greta and Joseph hand-cut 300 polystyrene forms for sandcasting open-sided iron cubes. Logistics again involved boats, tides, weather implications. Collaborations with Gavin Hitchings continued — extending our practice large to small and vice versa — resulting in two exhibitions 1+1=3. Enraged about French nuclear testing in the Pacific, I created the print Beneath the Surface Mururoa (Le monde entier setient aux aguets), an edition of 100 distributed widely.

Gavin Hitchings’ brooch, silver, brass, copperIn response to Demarcation

An exhibition in Galerie Paris in Yokohama was followed by an invitation to represent them at NICAF – Nihon International Contemporary Art Fair. Commitment by the gallery was huge, carrying enormous costs which were recovered only from sales commissions – an indication of its success.It was my first experience of the chaos and extremes of huge art fairs. I was struck by the enormity of this one (the largest in Asia-Pacific region) — galleries, dealers from all over the world, selling, noise — perhaps a place for artists to hide from.

Graphite rubbing (detail) Fijian club

Installing Times Tables at Christchurch Art Gallery

One day for all to set up with trucks, cranes, beeping forklifts, endless announcements… it was a blur. I felt like a participant in a massive piece of theatre. At NICAF I met Ian Findlay-Brown from World Sculpture News, who requested an article. New Zealand writer Cassandra Fusco filled this brief admirably and followed with another essay for Craft Arts International. Times Tables was purchased by Christchurch Art Gallery TePuna o Waiwhetū for their permanent collection from their exhibition Part of the Furniture.

I represented Galerie Paris again at NICAF this time in the massive new Funeno Kagakukan – a cavernous ship-shaped International Forum building in Tokyo. A highlight was the exchange of artwork with the owners of the Museum of Surrealism at Chateau Vaux le Penil, near Paris – two of my sculptures for a set of 30 Hans Bellmer etchings Les Chants de Maldoror, and Salvador Dali’s La Venus aux Fourrures 1969. Japan is full of surprises. Aspects of this show went on to the intimate and beautiful space at Hashimaya Gallery in the ancient city of Kurashiki, Christchurch’s sister city.

On signing a significant commission in 1999 to create an entrance sculpture for Christchurch Art Gallery, I resigned my teaching post to work full time on my art practice. Gallery architect David Cole embraced my concept for Reasons for Voyaging. My aim was an arrival experience anchored in a sense of place — these islands, trajectories, journeys, histories — site specific. Work on Reasons for Voyaging began with leasing premises, full-time employment of Jeff Golding and part-time employment of many others over the ensuing three years – while co-ordinating the sculpture with the construction of the gallery. I found myself immersed in a small business with overheads, staff and taxation to contend with, on top of producing work and exhibiting in both solo and group shows.

Reasons for Voyaging build, Christchurch

The new millennium saw an increasing focus on ‘issuesthat confront us’, on ‘looking back to see forward’ at NewZealand as one of the most rapidly modified landscapeson Earth. It was clear we were in trouble, and those withpower and political clout were either blind, incompetent orignorant. What is the line between the arts and activism?I don’t claim to provide the answers – but to say nothing,to present nothing will achieve nothing. Thoughts turnedto troublesome outcomes and precarious futures for those unknowing in coming generations.

Selected to contribute three small works (of medal-artsize) to the Meguro Museum Tokyo show A Shriek from an Invisible Box—100 international artists, I was also invited by the organiser, Mashiko Nakajima from Medialia Gallery New York, to nominate three other New Zealand artists to participate. I referred Gavin Hitchings, Carole Shepheard and Christine Hellyer. This gallery produced an superb catalogue, and my work continued to a show in New York.

When approached by Peter Gregg and Norma Dutton I aligned myself with their endeavour – a new Christchurch gallery, The Arthouse. This was a venue for regular exhibitions over the next decade.

Poster for Meguro Museum Tokyo

Making Connections, an exhibition at The Diversion Gallery, Marlborough, was the start of a long and fruitful relationship with Director Barbara Speedy and partner Nick Gerritsen. Invited to create Tribute to Firefighters with steel sent from the ruins of the World Trade Center, New York, I was conflicted. I agreed to it as a tribute, rather than a memorial. The emotional weight was greater than the physical. There were two histories: the horror of the mangled metals and the gravitas of intolerance, alongside the 900-year history of the allocated site, the cultural significance for mana whenua Ngāi Tūāhuririof the Ōtautahi site, and the Ōtākaro River.

The Christchurch City Council sister city relationship led to an eight-week residency offered by Kurashiki University of Science and Arts (KUSA) through its Head of Sculpture, Wataru Hamasaka, resulting in the public sculpture Lines Extending Kurashiki. In the spirit of the exchange, I incorporated stones from rivers closely associated with each city, speaking of place, connections, location. I organised a student exchange between KUSA and Canterbury University Sculpture Department, two collaborative exhibitions with Wataru Hamasaka, in New Zealand and Kurashiki, as well as a collaborative work Ukabu.

With friends Tetsuya Tokunaga and Kyoko Koreyasu, we visited Naoshima, then the Noguchi studio, followed by an absorbing day at the extensive home and studio of Noguchi’s contemporary Masayuki Nagare on Shikoku Island.

With Wataru Hamasaka and Garry Moore (Mayor)

With Masayuki Nagare and Tetsuya Tokunaga

Fixing Positions was installed permanently at Rocky Bay, Waiheke Island, having been purchased from Sculpture on the Gulf and gifted to Auckland City by a private benefactor. A new workshop space in Christchurch enabled larger scaleworks, and multiple projects simultaneously.

Reasons to Return, a commission for Connells Bay Sculpture Park on Waiheke Island, began a relationship with John and Jo Gow, generous supporters of New Zealand art – sculpture and theatre in particular. My commission involved staying in their artist accomodation, selecting a site, and developing a proposal, in the context of a significant return of farmland to nature, with the planting of thousands of native trees. The site I chose was relatively inaccessible (a 60° slope) involving logistical challenges: a helicopter was needed for pouring the concrete foundations and installing the work with pinpoint accuracy.

The sculpture was fabricated in a marine engineering workshop in Nelson, with oversight by Jeff Golding who had worked with me on Reasons for Voyaging. A tricky installation was completed with friend Nick Channon’s willing, ’can-do’ approach.

The Gows breathed a sigh of relief as the helicopter departed and the champagne corks popped. Connells Bay Sculpture Park showcases a significant collection of New Zealand sculptors’ work in a stunning setting of re-established native plants.

Opening celebration Reasons to Return

The Council commissioned the permanent sculpture Engage running from inside to outside Christchurch South Library. Inscriptions are cut into the tails: the learning te akoranga, the journey te hekenga, the challenge te wero.

Other works, both large and small, required transportation to far-flung destinations – Bondi/Sydney (Position Fixing), Wellington, Central Otago, Dunedin, Auckland. A large body of work was exhibited at simultaneous shows in Dunedin and Auckland for Milford Galleries

Installing Engage

Installing Position Fixing - Bondi, Sydney

In Japan again, I showed with Wataru Hamasaka, Affinity at Shiori Gallery in Kurashiki; Paula and I lived in the ancient house which served both as artist accommodation and gallery. Brick Bay Sculpture Trail invited a proposal and accepted Seek. Sold to a collector in Westmere, Auckland, installation was challenging as the location precluded a crane, so the 5 x 2.5 metre sculpture was carried, with help from local builders, through the house, then erected by handon the edge of the estuary site. Contributions to 12 group shows in 9 locations made for a busy year. Our seaside bach near the Abel Tasman National Park continued to provide a retreat for thinking and drawing– away from the city, workshop and endless villa maintenance. The isolation and the sea was always restorative.

It was satisying to donate work to innovative fundraising initiatives, particularly Cure Kids who arranged successful events introducing artists and patrons in a meaningful way and to support improvements in medical research and children’s lives. Other worthwhile experiences involved Women’s Refuge and Cholmondeley Children’s Centre. Reach purchased from Art in Central Otago was gifted to Wanaka for a site on the lake foreshore. It was a year of public commissions – Insight at St Margaret’s College, and Kaputone Creek Pedestrian Bridge for Christchurch City Council. The Kaputone project involved wrangling with a large council with a final resolution approximating my design.

Further ventures in Asia included solo and group shows assisted by a NZ-Japan Exchange Programme grant. During the Yokohama Triennale I completed the experimental work Tsutsumu (Envelop) in the Yokohama ZAIM contemporary art space, Latitude in Galerie Paris (Yokohama), followed by a collaboration, Attitude, with fashion designer Donna Tulloch of Mild-Red, at Galerie Paris. Attitude comprised small-scale sculptures integrated in to high fashion garments. Support from the NZ Embassy Tokyo contributed to the success.

We took in Shanghai en route to Hong Kong where we mounted How Near, How Far? at the Koru Gallery. Their comprehensive catalogue with an essay by Robin Woodward turned out to have a life well beyond this exhibition.

Young students in Hong Kong

Garments exhibited 2008

The 60-component installation Converse with units up to four metres high, was exhibited at The Arthouse simultaneously with Transfer in Canterbury Museum’s Conversations Across Time, effectively extending ‘conversations’ beyond the museum walls. The segmented base-plates of each component were to take on new significance as metaphors for tectonic plates following the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010/11.

With Donna Tulloch , Mild-Red, planning for Attitude Yokohama

Two private commissions in Christchurch dominated 2010: Traverse and Reflect. A wind-responsive, 8-metre, cliff-topwork, Reflect required a helicopter to install. Both works proved to be short-lived, their locations succumbing to the 2011 earthquake.

Excavated Reflect in transit to Museum

Reflect had a life of just one year before house and sculpture tumbled with the cliff-top and were buried in the debris below. It was excavated after four years and gifted to the Canterbury Museum’s Quake City. Pivot at The Arthouse was their last exhibition before the earthquakes destroyed their purpose-built premises and I lost my Christchurch dealer – ending a very constructive relationship of 10 years.

Earthquakes and the after-effects limited exhibition options to pop-ups and group shows beyond Christchurch. I completed Auger Augur for Whitespace at the Auckland Art Fair, the largest of a series about ideas of drilling into the earth, and the consequences.

On the domestic front, chaos prevailed, with damage to many small works in both workshop and home. The initial clean-up included the intriguing rediscovery in my home studio, of works spilled from shelves and drawers, leaving a rich stirring of ancient ‘forgottens’ in with broken works in progress. Seeing early maquettes on top of recent experiments raised the questions ‘how far have I come/not come? What constitutes progress? ’The earthquakes forced a rethink of what is important. I made ‘loss adjusters’ of disparate broken bits, and I started my Intersections project.

While on a family trip back to Spain, I was appalled, indignant and disbelieving to read an international newspaper report exposing serious pollution in New Zealand waterways. The Madrid visit took in Picasso’s compelling Guernica with the horror it depicts, and Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights – somehow the gravitas of these two works and the reported pollution fused, highlighting the place of art in raising awareness of human folly and destructiveness.

Bosch’s 16th Century warning of moral decline has a linking visual device – water. I wondered at the 12 vulnerable young figures wading naked in the central pond. Were the 12 figures and the 7 birds a top their heads a Pythagorean number-play or is there another message? Could this composition jump 500 years and the lake become a symbol of our impending Antipodean environmental abyss? So started a five-year journey – propelled by offical political ineptitude declaring that our waterways could be measured as ‘wadeable’.

Study for sculpture, Setting the Bar (with Bosch)

I returned to work on Phase (started back in 2010) for Sir Miles Warren at Ohinetahi (Governor’s Bay). The concept centred around a series of photographs taken everyday for one month of the patterns of the ebbing tide in the estuary. The earthquake’s destruction of the historic house suspended the sculpture project. With the major restoration of the house completed, the sculpture was able to be installed.

International Sculpture Festa 2012 South Korea (ISF2012) invited me to participate – a very efficient, well-funded process. The residency involved building a work for the Songchu Art Collection. My proposal for Tipping Point was used widely in publicity including a poster which covered the entire wall of a building. They selected four other international artists, from the USA and Australia, and provided us with teams of technicians. Coincidentally, our son Joseph was living and teaching in Seoul. He helped all of us with his practical skills, his language knowledge – then stood in for me when I had to return home for a family funeral.

International Sculpture Festa hoarding, Hangaram Square, Seoul

With Nick Gerritsen, Barbara Speedy at The Diversion Gallery

In the evenings, in my intriguing accommodation (previously a ‘love hotel’ ), I made the miniature Wait Watchers – exhibited in the Hangaram Art Museum. Bringing a figure (a clean-machined, unseeing, digital man) into play was a turning point.

Back in New Zealand Hard to Swallow — an installation of 267 laser-cut ‘replicas’ of whale meat tins — started life in The Diversion Gallery. It was a protest about Japan’s Southern Ocean whaling, 267 being Japan’s previous year’s ‘small’ catch which had been limited by Sea Shepherd protestors. The editioned tin sculptures were dispersed widely, taking this protest in a small way around the world. We had to move out of our house for three months during earthquake repairs – yet we were among the lucky ones. The freshly painted interior was a bonus as we celebrated the 100th year of our villa.

The concept of the soulless figure — polished, superficial, unseeing — poised on the ‘doomsday clock’ was now elevated on a recycled telecommunication pole from Antarctica. Overview/Overlook/Oversee took its message from Sculpture on the Gulf to a survey exhibition at The Suter in Nelson, then Tai Tapu Sculpture Garden in Canterbury, and finally toa private collection. I was asked to speak to this work, and my sculptures at Connells Bay Sculpture Park and The Farm, as part of the International Sculpture Centre (ISC) conference on public art in Auckland.

A residency at Lincoln University’s Landscape School enabled me to expand the idea with a new clock configuration, and a particular focus on water. Oversight incorporated a bucket which, when filled with rainwater, activated a mechanism to tip and spill the water. Students helped develop the text for the six metre pole. Auckland Airport acquired Position Fixing for its Abbeville Sculpture Walk.

International Sculpture Festa hoarding, Hangaram Square, Seoul

Oversight, Lincoln University

The exhibition Heavy Shadows at Whitespace Auckland used oblique studies from Seoul of the shadows cast by Tipping Point on the grid of paving stones in Hangaram Square. Experiments with scale resulted in both tiny jewellery pieces, the shadows lasercut from stainless steel, and a very large Overshadow suspended outside Whitespace between two buildings for the next five years.

Two South Island regional public galleries curated survey shows with energy and professionalism – the Aigantighein Timaru to start the year and The Suter in Nelson in December, running into 2014. I was pleased to have my hometown, Nelson, embrace my work, with How Near, How Far? including two collaborative works – A Matter of Degree with Marilyn Rea-Menzies and Karihi with Sally McAra. Outside, we installed Overview/Overlook/Oversee. Sally Blundell wrote a comprehensive review, the coverstory for World Sculpture News entitled Changing the Global Gaze.

The summer exhibition In Balance at The Diversion Gallery in Picton incorporated recent sculptures with works from my former teacher, the late Don Peebles. Kuaka (godwits) was a finalist for a Christchurch International Airport (CIAL) competition. Meanwhile, I completed the rebuild of part of my quake hit workshop. Employment by OPUS in an Arts advisory capacity on the Christchurch redevelopment was an insight into the enormous energy and expertise contributed by professionals only to see the bureaucrats reduce it to mediocrity. This experience of frustration with CERA (Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Authority) plunged to new lows over ensuing years.

The year started with a family focus – Greta and her partner Jason Pengelly were married. The private commission Extant provided refreshing creative freedom, for a commercial development adjacent to Knox Church in Victoria Street, Christchurch. A Civic Award recognised John Ryder, the enlightened developer who commissioned the work and a booklet documenting the project. Our son Joseph, back in New Zealand, was again involved, designing and installing the lighting.

Extant in progress, John Freeman-Moir

Greer Twiss with Try to Focus

Despite numerous large rebuild projects in Christchurch such sculpture commissions were rare. Exhibiting with Philip Trusttum at Whitespace (Auckland) a highlight was Greer Twiss’ interest in my Try to Focus. It resulted in an exchange for his bronze Winged Victory. A commission for the Taupo Sculpture Trust saw Defining Horizons installed on the lake front. Political incompetence and misdirection inspired the Signal series with a first showing at Milford Galleries Queenstown – who also initiated the installation of What’s at Stake at Carrick Winery. The concept of the ‘overseeing’ figure, begun in Korea, evolved with Push the Sky Away installed in Sculpture in the Gardens – Auckland Botanic Gardens and later placed on loan at The Suter Gallery Pastorius Sculpture Walk, Nelson.

The Heed exhibition at Chambers saw the Signal series develop with Pooling Ignorance the beginning of an ongoing exploration of water issues, irrigation, lake pollution and Government policy or the lack there of. In post-quake Christchurch, I made use of empty spaces with two pop-up exhibitions. Increasingly angered by lack of action over water issues, I embarked on photographic studies towards Polluted Inheritance and the Wade project. Tai Tapu Sculpture Garden commissioned None So Blind incorporating another of the decommissioned telecommunication towers from Antarctica.

December presented an exciting opportunity to give back to my city – the call for submissions for an ‘artist-led’ design of a pedestrian bridge. I obtained the very detailed Request for Proposal (RFP) and embarked on the design with artist Areta Wilkinson (Ngāi Tahu) and Dean Sykes from ARUP who fronted an innovative and award winning team of international bridge engineers.
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We put long hours into a design that was anchored in this place, in this time, and spoke of ancient river traditions. The design held intimate contemporary surprises. We were finalists, but the later bureaucratic decision to cancel the competition was enormously frustrating for all submitters – and a careless waste of both public and personal time and funds. Friends John and Jo Gow insisted ‘it’s time for a major publication’. They followed up with an introduction to art publisher Ron Sang who embraced the idea - beginning a journey of reflection on my past.

Bridge planning with Areta Wilkinson

The Wade Project began by bringing together a diverse team equally fierce about water issues: social theorist John Freeman-Moir, ecologist Shelley McMurtrie, Bosch exhibition professional Eefje Broere, Barbara Speedy gallerist and myself, with John editing a booklet canvassing the link to Hieronymus Bosch and the water concerns. To realise Polluted Inheritance, I collected water from five of New Zealand’s most polluted lakes.

The first showing of Wade was linked to the Social Enterprise World Forum held in Christchurch. We negotiated to use the Free Theatre space at Christchurch Art Centre. A well-attended opening, positive reaction from delegates and the public led to ideas about restaging it elsewhere in the future.

For the 3D printing of Be It On Our Heads we used full figure scans from Sabry Macher’s sophisticated mobile booth of 150 cameras in Wellington, and his links with 3D colour printing in France. Realism in the naked figures heightened the notions of vulnerability in this work. The enthusiasm of young models and empathy for the subject and their concern for their future seemed to anticipate the ground-swell of youth in 2019 clamouring for climate action. Another feature article in World Sculpture News added reach to this project. I experimented by shrinking Pooling Ignorance to medal size and made the first three ‘medals of deception’. After almost 30 years at Ara Institute of Canterbury, Paula resigned her position to begin a new phase – which quickly came to mean a significant commitment to this book venture.

Collecting water from Lake Waikare

With Paula

Wade evolved into The Jeopardy of Unknowing, a concept of the hapless coracle with two-sided photo images of young people blindfolded, a drift, facing an uncertain future. Jeopardy was refined into a reduced-scale Medal of Deception depicting a fractured globe – for the FIDEM international medal exhibition in Tokyo in 2020.

A visit to Meretoto (Ship Cove) in the Marlborough Sounds with Mark Adams and Gerda Leenards — an initiative inspired by The Diversion Gallery — re-ignited voyaging/arrival and navigation ideas. At the same time I was re-reading Anne Salmond’s historical works and researching James Cook’s diary and notes. The sculpture series Remarkable resulted, exploring layers of history, materials, concepts.

Works still evolve out of the earthquake experience and the documenting of post demolition / pre-rebuild voids. The cutout and reassembled photo series Intersections— intended for exhibition on the 10-year anniversary of the Christchurch earthquakes — is a metaphor for the crossroads, voids and pathways ahead: the ever-not-quite.

Going to Meretoto with Gerda Leenards, Mark Adams, Barbara Speedy 2018

I wrestle with the scale of the book project - fundraising, planning, strategy, presentations, finding, collating repairing content and images, marketing, photographing, digitizing etc. balancing the looking back over a life’s work with a ‘hold’ on realizing new ideas. I am saved by the huge support from Ron Sang for his encouragement, John and Jo Gow for managing fundraising, Barbara Speedy for editorial energy and expertise, Maurice Lye for design and photography, Paula for looking after production and my sanity, Greta and Jason for digital advice, John Freeman-Moir, Robin Woodward, Rosa Shiels, Felicity Milburn for their writing, to name just a few.

Marketing meetings confirm interest in the Tribute to Firefighters chapter and suggest potential for book sales in New York. Meetings with Ambassador, firefighters, those involved in the 2001 recovery and some on the ground in New York kept momentum going. Exciting possibilities explored including the possibility of Christchurch “giving back” to New York.

Invitations for 2021 exhibitions at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū and Canterbury Museum are affirming, the potential of a large commission on the horizon, and shows at dealer galleries offer opportunities for the realization of a raft of new ideas that surround me.

Writers at book launch, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū

2019 exhibitions include Milford Galleries Dunedin, Tai Tapu Sculpture Garden, Brick Bay Sculpture Trail, About Face, MANZ at Artis Gallery.

Covid 19 highlighted another of our vulnerabilities – sharpening the image of the precipice on which we find ourselves. Lockdown gave time for reflection on others, particularly family, and for personal questions on the sustainability of my practice.

Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū Survey Show – Seeking a Balance was open 31 October 2020 – 21 February 2021.

Seeking a Balance with a budget and curatorial and technical expertise afforded the opportunity in the best possible public venue to present a selection from a huge portfolio of works.  Wall-sized video projections of large scale installations were impressive as were the huge NZ visitor numbers –more than compensating for the lack of international visitors to NZ due to Covid precautions.

‍Coracle of the Deceived – the most recent work in the exhibition – I worked with a team of actors/models and new material for 3D scanning and printing figures. Drawing from the composition of Bosch’s Ship of Fools I needed real people to set up this piece of theatre - re our collective blindness to the emerging crises and the plight of the generations to come who find themselves suspended in their ‘coracle’ / part of a globe. (now in the Chris Parkin collection).

The Ron Sang publication Graham Bennett – Around Every Circle was launched at the opening of the exhibition in Christchurch, and subsequently in Nelson. This was the culmination of three years work for an incredible team involved in fundraising, photography, design, essay writing, editing, production, research and administration.

Covid lockdowns meant the postponement of an Artist Residency in Japan, any plans to release the book in New York (the reason for the chapter Tribute to Fire Fighters), and an interruption in the Canterbury Museum show.

Disrupt - an installation comprising 33 axes made from pine and recycled native timbers rendered fragile using laser technology. The disruption of new technology on society, like the axe, is both constructive and destructive in nature. Disrupt evolved after considering Allen Curnow’s The Axe – A Verse Tragedy (1949) which presents an analogy of the disruptive impact of religion, technology and colonization.

Axis and Axes: Graham Bennett Experimental Works - Canterbury Museum 27 May – 24 October 2021.

Supported by management, curatorial and skilled technical staff this major survey show, on for five months, included four installations, collaborative pieces, and selected historical works displayed alongside Pacific artefacts from the Museum’s collection that I had been privileged over some years to make surface rubbings of.

Sculpture on the Peninsula pivoted to an online show and Pitch sold.

A thorough maintenance check was completed for Reasons to Return at Connells Bay. Propelled by weekly discussions with John Freeman-Moir and one about Hilary Putnam I borrowed the title The Entanglement of Fact and Value for a Dunedin exhibition. This show saw the completion of works - Plug, A Precarious Will Be, Maquette: A Theatre of Deception (Carousel).

Inspired by high school students’ passionate protests re our environment, I included local young people as models.

Connect – was commissioned for the BrainTree Wellness Centre.

I installed Look Beyond at Connells Bay Sculpture Park.

Paula and I enjoyed celebrating our 50^th wedding anniversary particularly with our children.

Sound Out installed for the Tai Tapu Sculpture Garden March exhibition. Using another telecommunication pole from Antarctica this sculpture references the ripple effect of currents, waves, power systems, ecosystems and many disruptive forces in our world. Events unfolding in Antarctica are a barometer warning us of perils ahead. A disconnect prevails - we are not paying attention, not listening, not seeing, not connecting.

Cradle - A private commission completed and installed in Dunedin.

I was one of 20 artists providing a print for CAG 20th anniversary celebration.

A trip to Taiwan to visit our son was a highlight of the year.

The residency and two exhibitions in Japan were my prime focus.

The invitation to be an Artist Residence in Japan came from Wataru Hamasaka – sculptor and Professor Emeritus at Kurashiki University of Science and Arts. Hamasaka had purchased a house in Nagao for artist’s use in conjunction with his Yataka studio space and his links with the University. To date several international artists have been hosted. The pandemic interrupted my acceptance of his invitation – which was re-ignited in 2023 for 2024 to realize the project Fracture – an installation.

Residency entrance

The Cajuan Residency provided a traditional Taisho/ early Showa era dwelling twenty minutes walk from Shin Kurashiki Station. In addition to the 6 room house facilities included a studio space, electric vehicle and provision of assistance with essential equipment. Support extended to website publicity, newspaper and radio interviews, and the coordination of exhibitions in two separate spaces – Yakage Hongin and the Hamasaka Caju Studio at Hattori Tamashima – with a photographer (Takaya Mori) to document.

Hamasaka studio

This experience in traditional settings saw us fully immersed in the Japanese architectural aesthetic including living in an old village in close proximity to Kurashiki City with its extensive and well maintained Bikan trading area. It was a privilege to realize the Fracture project in unique and diverse spaces – the living and working areas of the residency house, ancient Yakage Honjin with a history that stretches back 400 years to Edo Japan, and the contemporary Hamasaka studio designed by the acclaimed Kazunori Fujimoto.

Yakage Hongin entrance

The use of Japanese materials - Awagami bamboo paper, bamboo, traditional kakishibu dye made from fermented persimmons, consideration of architectural and domestic proportions as in tatami mats, and techniques such as corner jointing and pegs – all added a valuable dynamic to my project. I refined my practice to using simple and sustainable materials and techniques with the primary ingredient being time. Considering concepts like “nintai” (patience, commitment, perseverance) or the notions behind “senbazuru” (repetitive labour).

GB at work in studio

This residency has highlighted for me the value of shifting my art practice from the familiar, and to stand back from, to question and to rethink. Having my family all together for the first week added significantly to the Japanese experience.

Trial installation at house