Architecture becomes set in stone
New Zealand artist Joe Sheehan is no stranger to large stone carvings, but his latest collection, Real Estate, has a distinct architectural slant. Sheehan is exhibiting these 10 new sculptures at the Tim Melville Gallery in Grey Lynn until 12 October 2019.
“I’ve always been attracted to blue-collar buildings: old workshops, dilapidated barns, suburban State Houses. I like humble structures that are worn in an interesting way; it’s the way that they sit on, or in, the land that pulls me in. With these new works I wanted somehow to carve those fleeting memories and to place the viewer where I stood,” Sheehan says.
The pieces are floor-based works, carved from mainly Basalt and Argillite, which the artist sourced from an abandoned quarry in the South Island’s Greenhills.