Gibbs open-air Kaipara park holds biggest collection of large outdoor sculptures in New Zealand

Horizons, by Neil Dawson (36 metres high) at the Gibbs Farm on State Highway 16. Photo / Delwyn Hills

A beautiful setting, huge works by top international sculptors and a landowner going the extra mile to prove nature can be enhanced by out-of-the-square creative thinking ... Delwyn Hills shares her experience and photos of a spectacular, expansive sculpture park right on Northland's doorstep.

If you've driven the Kaipara Coast Highway 16 between Wellsford and West Auckland and wondered what the unusual objects perched on a hillside near Kaukapakapa are, you've likely passed Gibbs Farm.

This open-air park contains the biggest collection of large outdoor sculptures in New Zealand.

Owner Alan Gibbs bought the property in 1991 to escape the English winter and over the past 25 years has transformed the 400 hectares into a picturesque oasis.

Dismemberment, Site 1, by Anish Kapoor (85m long).

The property is open to the public on select days, usually once per month on a bookings-essential basis. There is no entrance fee and it's only a 90 minute drive from Whangarei.
I managed my long awaited visit one Thursday.

We watched that day's visitors stream in, some in cars, others by the busload, and park in the designated paddock. The first impression is the landscape is groomed like a manicured golf course. It stands out in contrast to the surrounding and challenging west coast farmland.

With the programme we were handed at the gate, a backpack with lunch and drinks, we began the easy walk up the first hill. Each work of art unfolds as you trek through the mown paddocks.

Firstly we headed over to the Tango Dancers by Marijke de Goey. It's not until you stand close to these spectacular masterpieces you realise their size; the height 14.5 metres.

Another creation by de Goey, The Mermaid, is an intense blue cube skeleton bridge. The cubes range in size from tiny brooches to monumental forms with intricate attention to detail. The temptation to walk across is thwarted by the polite sign requesting guests not to stand on it.

The Mermaid, by Marijke de Goey.

The walk is easy. As you stroll over the undulating hillsides and down through the hollows, you come across another carefully positioned creation. Somehow, and not by accident, the art responds to the environment.

Most of the sculpture is 'site specific', commissioned from scratch to sit in this landscape.
The Pyramid by Sol Le Witt is a minimalist sculpture while also appearing to be architecture. This monument is conceptually simple but perceptually complex.

The biggest piece is Te Tuirangi Contour by one of the world's best known sculpture artists, Richard Serra.

This undulating tilting ribbon of steel (all 650 tonnes) precisely follows the contour of the land. The 56 corten steel plates were especially made in a German foundry. The first shipment of plates arrived damaged and were sent back to be re-constructed.

A real giraffe, which visitors can feed.

This master-work is 252 metres long, 6 metres high and 50mm thick. Gibbs, a former engineering student, had to work out how to erect the sculpture.

Resident sheep sleep close to the wall. You can see where they've camped by the light-coloured strip along the base of the structure.

Perfectly titled, Horizons by Neil Dawson, one of the earliest pieces and constructed from welded and painted steel, is one of the few works which can be seen from the road. It suggests a giant sheet of corrugated iron blown from a collapsed water tank on some distant farm. Yet it has a fineness.

This elevated beauty is silhouetted against the sky at the top of the highest hill. Although creating the illusion of being 3-D, it's flat. This isn't revealed until you walk past and look across virtually at a right angle. Very clever.

Tango Dancers, also by Marijke de Goey.

Artist Andy Goldworthy, whose permanent land works can be found in numerous locations around the world, left his mark on the Gibbs property's foreshore in 2005 with a creation called Arches.

From a distance, and with the tide around it, it resembles a sea serpent. Built with pink Leadhill sandstone blocks quarried in Scotland, not far from where Gibbs' forebears came from, its 11 freestanding arches are formed from ancient Roman arches. Each arch is seven metres long, with each block 1.4 metres square.

Len Lye, renowned kinetic sculptor and creator of the wind wand in New Plymouth, has its counterpart here at Gibbs Farm. This is one sculpture that had to wait to be realised to Lye's specifications. It stands on a ridge responding to the sea breeze sweeping across the harbour.

The piece de resistance - and the most spectacular and unique exhibit in the entire park - was, for me, the horn by Anish Kapoor, titled Dismemberment, Site 1. It took six years to design and build and is made of mild steel tube and an intense red PVC membrane stretched between 25 metre steel hoops.

It appears a vast celestial trumpet measuring 85 metres in length. It draws you in. Up close you become aware of its magnitude although it lies horizontal to the landscape.
The tactile feel and enchanting sounds which echo through its enormous sound shell hold a unique attraction. This beauty left a lasting impression of 'art in all its glory'.

Gibbs' farm displays almost two dozen creations. Renowned artists such as Len Lye, Andrew Rogers, George Rickey, Richard Thompson, Kenneth Snelson, Sol Le Witt and Peter Nichols to name a few, have left their individual genius work on display.

From one of the high points of the farm there's a panoramic view of the Kaipara Harbour, the largest harbour in the southern hemisphere, which provides a striking contrast to the rugged countryside in the distance. Turn 180 degrees and look downwards and there, near the car park, a row of water fountains are playing art-in-motion across a manmade lake, adding an aesthetically softening dimension to this landscape of wonder.

And when you think you've seen all there is on offer, you encounter exotic animals and birds also chosen for their looks. The bison, deer, zebras and giraffes are beautifully cared for in custom-built enclosures. Containers of leafy twigs are on hand for the public to hand feed the giraffes.

Alan Gibbs once stated of his spectacular sculpture farm: "It's the ability to make so much statement with so little. That's basically the art we have here."