Fire Guardian by Tach Pollard is one of the artworks on display at The Quirky Fox.
Fire Guardian by Tach Pollard is one of the artworks on display at The Quirky Fox.
A birthday celebration for a boutique gallery in Hāwera is helping save the world’s most endangered parrot from extinction.
The Quirky Fox is celebrating it’s 11th birthday with a diverse exhibition — Figure It Out — and one of the pieces on display will be auctioned online, with all proceeds from the auction going to Te Papa Atawhai Department of Conservation’s Kākāpō Recovery to support its efforts in protecting the critically endangered kākāpō, of which there are only 248 alive today.
The piece is an incredible, hand-stitched and embroidered, life-size kākāpō created by Australian artist Robyn Lee-West. Made out of reclaimed fabric, wire and wood, and standing at 45cm high, it is sure to attract plenty of attention at the gallery, and through the online auction, the result of a partnership between Robyn Lees-West and Quirky Foxto support Kākāpō Recovery.
The life-size kākāpō, hand-stitched and embroidered by Australian artist Robyn Lees-West, will be sold by online auction.
Robyn says she enjoys combining her love of fabric and nature under the pseudonym Textile Taxidermy
“I love fabric, pattern and colour. I am so lucky to live in a beautiful place with plenty of space and trees. I have fallen in love with the colourful noist noisy birds here. So I make faux taxidermy birds from my collection of retro, vintage and reclaimed fabric. I don’t see my work as literal, more an artistic impression of the subject.”
She has a particular fascination with taxidermy and has been working on a series of extinct birds, aimed at showing beauty in death, she says.
Each bird is hand-stitched, containing hours and hours of hand embroidery. Even if a bird is recreated, each is unique.
Quirky Fox owner Vicki Fox says Figure It Out features the work of 15 artists who have each contributed up to six works showcasing a mixture of styles and mediums carved from gourds, shaped from clay or formed from reclaimed fabrics.
For many of the international artists taking part, it is the first time they have shown their work in New Zealand, making it a fantastic opportunity to see their work in person, she says.
While she encourages art fans to come and see the work in person at Quirky Fox, the exhibition will also be viewable online at www.quirkyfox.co.nz as will the auction for Kākāpo Recovery.
Another of the artworks featured is The Pumpkin Cottage, a complex miniature world imagined and created by Basia Wesolowska.
Originally from Poland, Basia uses skills from her work in set and theatre design (including work in film and TV), as well as graphic design and painting to create small-scale yet complete worlds she captures in jars like a wizard or alchemist.
The Pumpkin Cottage by Basia Wesolowska.
Drawing inspiration from all sorts of sources including pop culture, Studio Ghibli, traditional fairytales and the world around us, Basia creates beautifully fantastical and complex pieces of art.
Another artist drawing inspiration from the world around us is Tach Pollard. Based in Oxford, Tach is well known for the long-limbed creatures he crafts from wood. For his piece Fire Guardian, he has created two foxes, representing the site guardians known to appear at certain sacred spots in the UK. The two foxes are carved from burnt Hawthorn wood with gold leaf added. The cauldron of fire they are guarding is made from carved boxwood and gold leaf, with all burnt parts of the sculpture then treated with Danish oil.
Tach says he has always had a love for and appreciation of nature, and recalls spending lots of time as a child collecting tree roots to turn into skeletal sculptures to sell in his family’s shop in Brighton. The wood he uses is sustainably sourced.
