Sculpture in the Gardens 2018

Visiting the Sculpture in the Gardens at the Auckland Botanic Gardens is something that I always look forward to. It is held every two years and they are now celebrating a decade of sculpture.

My mother and I now have a (biennial) tradition of going along to Sculpture in the Gardens in the Christmas/New Year holiday period, spending an hour and a half or so ambling around the gardens following the sculpture trail and stopping off at various places in the gardens that take our fancy along the way. We then end up at the cafe for some lunch – overall a very pleasant way to spend a morning.

The sculpture trail has been well thought out in that it takes you through many different areas of the botanic gardens including the rose gardens that are usually looking spectacular at this time of year. Some of the pieces are displayed in wide open spaces, some out in the middle of lakes, and others more integrated into the gardens themselves e.g. up in the trees.

I always enjoy seeing the (twenty) different artworks and marvel at the wide range of materials and approaches. I can’t say that I like all of them and there are certainly usually several that I just don’t understand at all. But there are always ones that I love and/or appreciate the intricacy or cleverness of. Some just make me smile.

My favourite this year was a piece called Gull Boy by Jamie Pickernell: “For those of us that know Bird Lady and Pickernell’s fanciful bunnies, Gull Boy is already like an old friend. He stands proud with his fish, a familiar human pose beneath the beak and piercing eyes of a gull. A touch of whimsy in board shorts.”

Bird Lady was one of my favourites from a previous time that has now been purchased by the Botanic Gardens along with 20 others and is now on permanent display in the grounds. It is nice to see some of these favourite pieces as a reminder of our previous visits.