debuts at headland Sculpture on the Gulf, Waiheke Island
27 January 2017
KAURI GOLD 2017 from ember::vision on Vimeo.
Read the above Article in the 12 January Waiheke Weekender about this piece.
Viva Magazine 25 January 2017
An installation made from 2000 year-old Kauri bricks recovered from Karangahape Road, Auckland and created by Matt Harte and Anton Forde, is on display in the event’s Pavilion Gallery from 27 January to 19 February.
The installation, a huge palette of hand-finished and lovingly lacquered kauri blocks stacked like gold bullion, was conceived in 2015 when Harte bumped into Anton Forde, an artist known for his wooden works, on the island. The genesis of a collaboration began and they are now invited artists of the 2017 Headland Sculpture on the Gulf, joining four other Waiheke locals featured as selected artists.
The blocks were originally used in the 1860s to create the surface of Karangahape Road in Auckland. 150 years on, they’re a commentary on our culture’s value system, resources and perception of wealth.
“From a distance, ‘There’s Gold in Them There Hills’ looks like a stack of gold from a vault. As you get closer you see that it’s Kauri – New Zealand’s gold,” explains Harte.
Pieces will be sold at the Pavilion, on the Matiatia foreshore, during the three-week event. The first will sell for $10, with the price then ascending in a growth sequence that represents the increasing value of the diminishing supply of the resource; with the last block expecting to sell for $1125.
“I’d love the public to buy and share these as individual pieces,” says Harte. “The gift is not in the monetary gain but in getting the kauri out again into the world, setting the blocks off on a new journey. There’s value in that.”