Terry Stringer
Guardian Temple Head, 2018,
Bronze, 1630mm on base
With a focus predominantly on still-life and figurative works, English-born Terry Stringer is one of New Zealand’s leading sculptors. Modelling in clay, Stringer captures the sensuous flowing curves of the figure, then casts in bronze, finishing each work with a soft wax patina.
Classical allusions are embedded in each artwork, drawing from his own history of staring at sepia photographs of classical art in an encyclopaedia: “So, ‘Great Art’ reached down to me in New Zealand. This is the past that my sculpture remembers.” The titles of the works further reinforce these classical allusions and add further layers to their interpretation.
To reinforce the three dimensionality of his sculpture, Stringer’s multiple viewpoints offer a subtle evolution of the image as one moves around the work. He explains: “My intention when making my work is to give viewers the reward of a surprise when they investigate the piece.”
In Guardian Temple Head Stringer returns to the themes of blessing and guidance previously visited in works such as Benediction and now we are encouraged to see the human head as a temple. The base of the head becomes a temple plinth while the solidity of the head itself opens up into a tripartite column structure revealing the watchful presence of a figure within.
The sculpture moves from a powerful affirmation of the raised fist which flows into the slightly bowed head lost in contemplation, evolving into a more alert and detailed face. Using multiple points of perceptive entry, each form presented by the single sculpture is experienced from a different place. None of these images are compromised by the other; rather they are discretely dissolved into the next.
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Artist Bio
Terry Stringer ONZM was born in England in 1946 and came to New Zealand in 1952. He achieved a Diploma of Fine Art at Auckland University in 1967. Throughout his career, Stringer has received numerous accolades, including the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council Scholarship three times. In the 2003 New Year Honours, he was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to sculpture.
Stringer is best known as a sculptor, having made two notable public installations: the explosive Mountain Fountain for Auckland’s Aotea Square (located to the Auckland Cathedral in Parnell) and the similarly powerful white lightning bolt in Rotorua. Most of Stringer’s work, however, is done on a smaller domestic scale, with everyday figures and objects comprising his subject matter.
Stringer’s sculptures fill space in a way that manipulates rather than occupies it, some works using methods first explored by the Cubists in the early 1900’s. Not conforming to traditional illusionistic perspective, Stringer tilts the horizontal space towards the viewer, his bronzes seeming to deny their three-dimensionality as they appear slightly squashed and crumpled at the corners. In other works he enhances the depth instead of suppressing the volume – a skilful use of perspective and shading makes a wall-mounted relief appear to have depth where actually there is very little.
These works are part of the trompe l’oeil tradition, works playing on the ‘trick of the eye’. In his works Stringer does not attempt to make any political or environmental statements, rather the sophisticated objects he creates are to be enjoyed and contemplated upon, providing pleasure, nostalgia and a touch of humour.
