When Art Meets Tin Cans

Works by Ben Pearce. Images supplied by Artist.

I’ve written about Napier artist/sculptor Ben Pearce before – click on his name in the label line below and you’ll be able to read about him in his studio for instance. Now he’s emerged from his home-based workplace to present a new show at Hawke’s Bay Museum & Art Gallery called Utterance. It’s all about survival, adaptation and communication - “work that explores the physicality of altered and protected memoryscapes; a kind of memory map town, using the image of the tin can to allude to survival, disasters and preservation.” Ben has also made a full-scale grandfather clock as “a kind of tribute” to his great-grandfather, who worked as a watchmaker but he views the piece as “a kind of treehouse at the same time, a place for solace and isolation.” Ben’s world of ‘fantastic creatures, of writhing chrysalis-like forms that appear to colonise tin cans carefully created from hardwood timbers, is set to open in Napier on March 7th and runs until May 17. www.hbmag.co.nz www.benpearce.co.nz

A Playful Eye

"Gadget" Ben Pearce. Photo Supplied.

Napier Sculptor Ben Pearce draws on the toys and memories of his own childhood in the creation of his contemporary sculptures. I find something innately joyful in his works, something that effortlessly unlocks the pathways to my own childhood memories. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what successful artistic communication is all about.

Design Spot 6

Sandi Reefman, Napier. June 2008. Ajr

Meet Sandi Reefman, the Napier creator of the fabulous and rapidly-expanding Esther Diamond Collection – a quirky, colourful range of homeware products that incorporates the designs and artwork of several leading New Zealand artists including Dick Frizzell, Para Matchitt, Fane Flaws, Martin Poppelwell and Ben Pearce. I LOVE the idea of drying my dishes on a tea-towel emblazoned with a Dick Frizzell design or a witty work by Martin Poppelwell; or, in a loose moment, wiping dribbled food from my chin with a table napkin that really looks as though it ought to be framed. It’s all about getting contemporary art out to a much wider audience says Sandi, and I’m all for that. I think it’s a brilliant concept that deserves all the support it is currently getting. See here for more of this gorgeous range. www.estherdiamond.com www.eon.co.nz

Artist Studios - 7

Ben Pearce Sculptures. Top left:"Sam"; bottomleft:"Morris"; Bottom Right:"Hamish & Henriette."

In the making of his highly tactile, often toy-like wooden sculptures, Napier artist, Ben Pearce wonders if he might be “living out his frustrated childhood” – a childhood characterised by a fascination with the discovery of things and how they worked. In the absence of the toys he hankered after he often made his own. Today his silky wooden chrysalis forms are imbued with individual personalities, their little appendages, springs and ‘speakers’ swelling up with unspoken words and imaginings. And they have names – human names - like Sam, Morris, Hamish and Henriette, which doesn’t come as any real surprise when you learn that Ben has named the family cat Barry. When I visited Ben in his wood-filled home studio- complete with lathe, a craftsman’s tools, a million wooden off-cuts and sweet-smelling wood shavings - he was engrossed in the making of, what seemed to me, some sort of other-worldly fantasy city – an ever-expanding labyrinthine creation that threatened to take over his work space. www.cicadastudios.com

Art on Wheels

Photographed supplied by Ben Pearce

And here's another

great little sculpture

by Napier's

Ben Pearce

A Sculptural Teaser

Photo supplied

Allow me to introduce

Gizmo

a fabulous sculpture

by Hawke's Bay sculptor

Ben Pearce

There will be more.

Watch This Space!