DUNCAN Sargent admits the sculpture he’s entered in this year’s shapeshifter exhibition at TheNewDowse was a “bit of a science experiment”.
The Newtown-based furniture maker decided to use green wood – wood that has been recently cut and not treated – to create nine wooden buckets with steel handles.
“Because they’re drying out, they change. It’s interesting to see what they’ve done already. After the first day, they had cracked and yellowed,” Sargent laughs.
The sculptor says Nine Buckets of Wood is humorous.
“Buckets of water are used to put a fire out, so using buckets of wood is contradictory,” he says.
Sargent has exhibited at shapeshifter twice in the past, and used irony for both of those sculptures as well.
One was a “land Buoy” – a large wooden buoy meant for land, and the second was a lawn roller that is often used on cricket fields to flatten the grass.
“But instead of being a cylinder, mine was a cone, so it only rolled in circles. It’s great fun.”
Sargent is particularly interested in being sustainable when he makes his furniture.
“I work with a lot of plywood, and the glues in plywood are poisonous. My workshop is in my house, so I didn’t want that there,” he says. “I make my own plywood, and I stopped using MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard), which has lots of poisons in it.”
Shapeshifter features sculptures from almost 60 leading and emerging New Zealand artists.
Shapeshifter, TheNewDowse and Civic Gardens, daily 10am-5pm, and Thursdays until 8pm, runs until March 21.