Biography
Pearce’s art explores memory and reconciles it with a recent and common ‘ancestor’ to us all: childhood.
He strives to make visible the quirks and tragedies of our mind’s recording machinations, to materialize the emotional states that can cripple our bodies, and which often distortthe way we record time and memory.
The nature of this internal landscape is of interest to Pearce; his sculptures may exist within his internal world, but they also seek to co-exist as time-travelers in our own.
His recent work employs found objects that are reshaped into forms suggestive of scientific apparatus or adjunct experiments. Works shift from one material to another, changing form and shape — shifting as if in a slow state of transmutation.
The assemblage work of Pearce regularly features rock like formations, which often mimic everydayobjects such as furniture or geological structures.
He is a New Zealand based sculptor who works with wood, stone, metal and found objects.
Pearce completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2003, majoring in sculpture at Whanganui Quay School of Fine Arts and has exhibited regularly in New Zealand and Australia since.
His work has featured in shows discussing sculpture in New Zealand at City Art Gallery, Sergeant Gallery, Suter Gallery and Whakatāne Gallery. He has work held in the public and private collections.
His work ‘Great Grandfather Clock’ won the 2009 Waikato youth award, his work Mergar won the Moly Morpeth Canaday Award in 2014, and in 2016 Stone Age Eight Gauge won the Number 8 Wire Award.
He was selected by Warwick Brown for his collectors guide ‘Seen this Century’, which features 100 contemporary New Zealand artists.