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Neil MILLER
Regeneration 2008
Steel and vines
7000 x 1300 mm diameter
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.
"Neil Miller's sculpture is planned to create an evocative interplay of
constructed and natural forms. It draws on Constructivist sculptural
traditions, first developed by avant-garde Russian artists of the early
twentieth century in celebration of industrial materials and utopian urban
culture. Regeneration is built from steel extrusions, deliberately exposing
their manufactured character and the way they have been bolted together, in
order to emphasise how the work is structured. The linear vertical form
suggests the functionality of archetypal architectural supports, from ancient
columns to modern pylons. But unlike the solid monoliths of columns - and most
public sculpture - this work does not so much occupy space as enclose and
interact with it. This has a practical as well as an aesthetic aspect, for
Miller designed this work as an arbour, a frame for supporting plants. Three
native New Zealand vines, planted in the concrete container, which forms the
sculpture's base, will in time cover the work. Conventionally we preserve
monuments from the invasion of moss or weeds, but this is planned to become
overgrown, construction overtaken by nature - a metaphor of visual amnesia.
Parsonsia heterophylia, tecomanthe speciosa, and metrosideros fulgens (red
rata) flower successively in spring, summer and autumn, acting out a seasonal
process of regeneration. In the context of the Domain's history as a memorial,
this takes on a special significance, a living wreath suggesting the renewal of
life in the face of death."
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.
NEIL MILLER was born in England in 1963. He emigrated to NZ with his family
in his early teens and attended the Elam School of Fine Arts at Auckland
University graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1987. In 1996 he
completed a Diploma in Arts Administration.
Miller works in a variety of mediums including watercolour painting and metal
sculpture. His art often references systems and codes of communication, and
depicts concepts of duality.
He has participated in a number of major New Zealand and international outdoor
sculptural projects including for the New Lynn Community Centre in 2002 where
he designed and made a series of metal 'signal' works sited at the rear of the
building along the rail line. The Opanaku Arts Bridge (linking the Corban
Estate to Henderson Park), 2003, Regeneration in the Auckland Domain 2004 and
the 2004 work Here and There at the Ironbridge Open Air Museum of Steel
Sculpture in Shropshire, Britain.
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