2002 The Garden

The Garden, taking its name from the biblical garden, is a reference by Dibble to New Zealand as an antipodean paradise.

The artwork features a female torso juxtaposed by a leaf falling; a slow gracious fall, just landing to balance upright. The movement of the leaf suggests the passing of time with the seasons.

The leaf and torso together are placed for more than just narrative. As shapes they aesthetically relate in the soft swells and curves, subtly nodding to each other to create an atmosphere of stillness and tranquility.

From the front view the sculpture’s forms appear monumental with full solid shapes. But when approached from the side the forms are actually semi-relief, with thin delicate edges, and the form lending towards abstraction. Here are contained the classical elements of European notions of sculpture, yet with its Pacific context enacted as in the almost two-dimensional quality of canoe prows or South Pacific sculpture. Contrasted to this is the apple, as from the forbidden garden, modeled completely in the round.

The work was first shown in Wellington in 2002. Dibble retained one of the editions for a time and, before its release, altered the work by gilding the apple.  

The Garden was displayed in Palmerston North for a short time, before it was purchased by the Mills Trust and moved to Havelock North.