Work: Sliver
Year: 2006
Construction: Stainless steel
Size: 2800 x 2800mm
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Description:
Virginia King is an artist whose name is synonymous with large-scale sculpture in the landscape. Many of her works are commissions for private patrons and are rarely seen by the general public. Of her works in the public arena, the most well-known are her Reed Vesselin the Melbourne Docklands, theRewarewa Creek footbridge, New Lynn and Aramarama footbridge at Mission Bay. Some will know her Feather, Fern and Matiatia Frond at Telstra Clear Event Centre in Manakau City and her work at the Waitakere Aquatic Centre (West Wave) or in the Koru Lounge, Auckland International Airport. In early 2006 she created three large-scale sculptures as part of the New Zealand garden at Chelsea.
What these works all have in common is a singular empathy with their environment. Sliver at Brick Bay continues this engagement. It is a glowing stainless steel disc almost 3 metres in diameter. It stands on its edge, silhouetted against the sky, a delicate yet powerful presence in the landscape. The central aperture plays with the concept of a lens, of outlook and perception. Through the perforated elliptical spheres are glimpses of local landforms, the lakes, native bush and the ambient order of the vineyard. In formal terms the work combines expansive vision and substantial scale with a careful consideration of detail. Together these create broad planes of patterns of light, mass and space.
The work is double-sided so that it has more than one vantage point. In addition it can be rotated on its base to frame varying landscapes, diverse and changing points of view. In this it speaks of its own universality and the myriad of references one can read in its form. In a rural landscape the form makes reference to plough discs. In the more universal human context its forms speak of genetic pools and micro organisms, the essence of life. The work can be seen as a meditative form, of silence and of the Zen void. It is a symbol of life and of death, good and evil, an archetypal symbol of time, of the cosmos and eternity.
Other work
