Anton Parsons

Considered one of New Zealand's leading sculptors, Anton was born in 1968 in Palmerston North and currently lives in Auckland. In 1990 he completed a BFA in Sculpture at Canterbury School of Fine Art, Christchurch, New Zealand winning the Rosemary Muller sculpture award. During this decade he received creative grants from QE2 Arts Council (1991 & 1993) and Creative New Zealand.(1996)

Anton uses a range of media including industrial materials, readymade objects and photography. He often creates large-scale, site-specific work such as the braille ‘curtain wall’ of Gone Fishing in PWC Tower.

He has exhibited in many group and solo shows and appears in many private collections, while his public commissions include:

Passing Time, 2011, Wilson Reserve, Christchurch

Numbers, 2007, Coleman Mall, Palmerston North

The Longest Day, 2004, Q&V Building, 203 Queen Street

Analogue, 2004, KPMG Building, Tauranga

Invisible City, 2003, Lambton Quay, Wellington

Polyglot, 2003, North Shore District Court, Albany

Gone Fishing 2002 PWC Tower, Auckland

Alphabeti, 1992, High Court, Wellington

Anton says that he doesn’t believe that the artist necessarily needs to impose his views or beliefs on the people who view the art. “In that sense, I am a little unusual I suppose. I do like a message to be buried in the work, but it is hidden and isn’t necessarily meant to be found. It means as much to me that the viewer might impose their own interpretation on the work. It’s like when someone has a favourite song, but doesn’t know the words or mishears them and gets them wrong. Does it take anything away from the song that the listener has a different idea of what it’s about, or gets pleasure from it thinking the words are nonsensical? I don’t think so.”