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Louise PURVIS
Promise Boat 2005
Bardiglio marble and basalt
800 x 2500 x 1000 mm
Initialed & dated 05
Collection of the Edmiston Trust, Auckland Domain
Part of the project initiated by Outdoor Sculpture 2001 Incorporated for the
Auckland Domain and funded by the Edmiston Trust with support of the New
Zealand Lottery Grant Board Millennium Fund and the Auckland City Council.
"Images of boats are powerful signifiers for island nations, especially for
Aotearoa New Zealand, where the land was discovered and rediscovered by many
different navigators. The Auckland War Memorial Museum houses fine examples of
old Polynesian canoes, which recall the earliest journeys. Louise Purvis'
sculpture, on a sloping site in the lower Domain where nearby waters once
lapped the shoreline of the Waitemata harbour, reminds us of them too. It takes
the form of an archetypal vessel, a metaphor of numberless voyages. Poised on
its side on a hemispherical basalt base, Promise Boat is no ordinary craft. It
suggests many interpretations, particularly because the form is wrapped,
implying hidden potential and lending it a quality of mystery. The work evokes
the enfolding of a precious object or the bandaging of something fragile. The
organic form of the binding suggests pulsating capillaries enmeshing an exposed
organ, perhaps a heart. Yet this seemingly vulnerable form is not itself
fragile: it will resist the elements, just as vessels and voyagers survived the
seas. For the work is carved in marble, chosen by sculptors for its
fine-grained durability since the time of ancient Greece, and used for the
Domain's Winter Garden sculptures. But, avoiding the polished whiteness
favoured by neo-classical artists, Purvis has chosen Bardiglio marble with a
soft grey tone, complementing the subtly scored and stippled surfaces she has
created."
Text written by Elizabeth Rankin, Professor of Art History, Auckland
University, is from a publication sponsored by the P.A. Edmiston Trust,
Auckland City Council and Hobson Community Board. Photograph taken by Gill
Hanly courtesy of Urbis magazine."
LOUISE PURVIS born in 1968 in Pahiatua, NZ. She studied at Napier
Polytechnic from 1987-1988 and then at Waiariki Polytechnic, Rotorua from
1989-1990.
Purvis's works have a simplicity to them, which belies their actual making. Her
primary mediums are stone and metals. Recent work has been based around
landforms and notations of marking and mapping.
Public commissions include. Heritage Towers, Auckland, 2000, Manukau Courts,
Auckland, 2001, Te Puna Wai Ora, Hutt City Council, 2003, Promise Boat,
Auckland Domain, 2004, Land Map, Shou University, Taiwan, 2006, Catchment,
Waitakere City Council, Auckland 2006, Ceramic Markers, Olympic Park, Auckland,
2007.
Purvis lives and works in Auckland and exhibits on a regular basis.
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