Eye Sight sculpture wins No 8 Wire award

Auckland-based sculptor Rebecca Rose battled with wire for more than a month to take home the top prize for Fielday’s sponsored annual NO 8 Wire Competition. 

 Artists and art enthusiasts alike were present at the awards ceremony for the NO 8 Wire competition which was launched 18 years ago in 1997.

Rose’s sculpture titled Eye Sight, is symbolic of the connections of humanity.

“Many twists and turns shape our unique selves. But what is forgotten is our connection to the whole. I see perfectly intertwined threads connecting us all,” Rose said in her artist statement.

“It took me about a month of solid work, and that’s really going for it.. Trying to get it to work this way and that way, and I made a few mistakes… Of course the wire’s a lot stronger than I am.”

Rose’s husband, Matt Chamberlain, accepted the award on her behalf on the night.

“She has been pleading with me to help her but I refused, I think she has been vindicated tonight,” Chamberlain said.

Rose said she will reinvest the $8000 prize money into materials for new work. She also wants to donate some to a charity.

 “I like to do that when I get some good money coming in.”

This year’s judge Tony Nicholls said that he had been looking for a marriage between the concept behind the artwork and the skill of workmanship with the wire.

“As a judge you read the work in the same way that the artists made it, or intended to, and sometimes you don’t know when you create something, exactly how it’s going to be read,” Nicholls said.

Nicholls said Rose’s piece matched what he was looking for. “I had to set myself [guidlines] that I should judge on and [Rose’s sculpture] definitely answers those [guidelines] and [one of its] strengths is its NO 8-ness.”

Last year’s winning mother and son duo from Te Awamutu, Dagmar and Nick Elliot, entered separately this year with Dagmar coming in second.

Dagmar said last year she had asked her son for help because she did not know how to weld wire, but for her birthday she was given a welding helmet.

Dagmar’s award winning piece titled Rusty Jandals – Gone for a Swim is intended to symbolise a family who have left jandals by a piece of drift wood while they go for a swim.

Dagmar said the idea came to her after she fell over her husband’s “rather big” jandals.

“I picked them up and looked at them with a different material in mind. The next day I went to the workshop and just started to work on one. That pair is hanging on our garage. I certainly enjoy welding myself but I don´t mind some helpful hints and help if I fail which can be often! Nick often tells me: ‘Open your eyes Mum, then you can see what your are welding’! Rusty wire has a mind of its own and is not as easy to weld as new wire but I like it and I like the challenge,” Dagmar said.

Akky van der Velde came in third place with her sculpture Fenced In & Out.

This piece was symbolic of the ghosts of cows. Van der Velde said she made it to remind people of the animals that were part of the herd but have been replaced by the next generation.

“My work… is a celebration of the land, the NO 8 wire and the bovine. It can be looked at as a monument to New Zealand’s farming today,” Van der Velde said in her artist statement.

President of NZ National Fieldays Warwick Roberts also selected an artwork for the President’s Choice.

Roberts chose Our Nation’s Pride by Katrina Jury of Hamilton which he liked for its simplicity.

“You didn’t need to explain what you saw, I felt the simplicity told the tale,” Roberts said.

Jury’s sculpture was a wreath made from NO 8 wire, which according to her artist statement was to commemorate New Zealand’s servicemen and women, past and present.

The creations are priced from $148 to more than $17,000 and are on display until June 29 at the ArtsPost. Entry is free.