2003 Man Carrying Rock Over Time

Heroic figures are often featured in Dibble’s work. Dating back to the 1980s he has modeled figures that are larger than life; saving sea-life, holding up landscapes, crossing rivers by weighing themselves down with rocks, heroes from our historical vernacular (Captain Oates Last Walk 1988 and studies on Captain Cook in 2003.) Bronze statutory is traditionally used to preserve memories of people of importance.

Many works whimsically raise to grandeur men of common professions; farmers, builders and bricklayers carrying out their trade as re-created Johnny Appleseed legends.

Signs of settlement occur as a consistent theme, there is the repeated use of plumb-bobs, showing Dibble’s interest in New Zealand’s colonization in our land’s short history.

The man carrying rock series is a time slice of the shifting of huge boulders as part of the on-going struggle to settle and establish homes. We see our hero at work, in strobe glances, as though from the time studies of Mudridge’s* early photography. We follow the grace of his movements as he carries himself across the landscape.

Typically the figure features larger feet with a slender body, more sensuous then muscular, treading softly on the earth.