May 1 - May 31, 1996 Paul Dibble

Paul Dibble believes that his approach to large-scale bronze figure sculpture reflects his interest in both European style public sculpture and in the forms of Oceanic art and architecture.

“I grew up in a remote rural district and didn’t travel to the large urban centres until I was a teenager. The bronze war memorial sculptures, usually in the Italian Classical style, were the first sculptures I ever saw. They stood out as something completely foreign in the rural NZ environment. My interest in sculpture probably stems from this time.

The present bronze works began about eight years ago. This obsession with displacement of ‘foreign’ cultural objects on this land was the moving force behind these works. The three works installed in the square deal with studies of nude torsos from the early European modernist traditions but I have adapted them to make them ‘fit’ here. From the front you see the mass of the figure, from the side the figure is linear, like the side profile of a tiki or a fish, or a mere. Each viewpoint alters or contradicts the other. The piercing of the ‘solid’ form, by cut-out breast shapes or rib cages, is similar to the perforated shapes of Oceanic sculpture and architectural decoration.”

Paul Dibble May 1996

Taken from the notes supplied by City Gallery Wellington during the exhibition.