Paul Dibble is New Zealand’s foremost contemporary sculptor. Having studied sculpture at the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, he set up his own bronze-casting foundry. This particular sculpture is outside the apartment building next to the marina, the Overseas passenger terminal and Waitangi Park
Paul Dibble is an artist of considerable vision and drive. A contemporary sculptor working in bronze, he can be located within a twentieth-century European sculptural tradition. Ideas which begin as beautiful fluid line drawings are worked and reworked to a point of perfect balance before being modelled and cast.
Dibble's work has been included in numerous exhibitions since the early 1970s, and in 2001 the Manawatu Art Gallery in Palmerston North held a major survey exhibition including around sixty works. Dibble also exhibits frequently as part of public outdoor sculpture events including Sculpture on the Gulf (Waiheke Island) and Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi Beach, Sydney in 2000.
In 2007 Dibble’s memorial sculpture in London’s Hyde Park was unveiled. This commission was awarded by the Ministry of Culture & Heritage and commemorates the relationship between the two countries and those loyal New Zealand servicemen who fought in armed conflict alongside Britain.
From a foundry in Palmerston North, Dibble casts all his own work with the help of a small team of highly skilled assistants. These sculptures vary in size from 350 millimetre high marquettes to large works over 5.5 metres in height. The casting in bronze of one's own work is virtually unheard of in New Zealand, particularly on such a large scale, and is in itself a technical feat requiring considerable skill and experience.
In mood, Dibble’s work alternates between a lightness of spirit that is at times impulsive and frivolous to more grounded pieces, which while they remain vital, also have a monumental presence.
As a young artist one of his aims was to create sculpture "of a size and nature to be effective outside, away from the protected gallery environment" (A.K.C.Petersen, in Paul Dibble, Bateman, 2001, p.64) and hence his concentration on large-scale works in bronze. Many of these larger works however are also cast as small marquettes, allowing the works an intimacy that they would not otherwise have.
The NZ Memorial in London
2 comments:
Finally, a blogger who identifies the artist's whose work he photographs! I'm always amazed that photographers are so territorial about the use of their own images but such slackers when it comes to giving credit to living artist's whose work they post. I often google an "artist's name" when their work interests me. They sometimes have web sites. Thanks.
If you should venture over to my blog, it will be up and running tomorrow. Today I'm tinkering on it.
Paul has also exhibited at healand Sculpture on the Gulf, the biennial outdoor sculpture exhibition held on Waiheke Island.
It's a non-profit event, free to the public and in 2009 runs from Friday 23 January to Sunday 15 February.
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