Martin Carryer: Bird Sculptures

This month Zimmerman is delighted to feature a series of bird sculptures by Palmerston North sculptor Martin Carryer.

Fashioned from kauri and metal, Carryer’s sculptures capture characteristics of our beloved New Zealand birds, while also alluding to the influence of humans on the birds’ natural habitat.

Among Carryer’s sculptural works are a wax-eye and tomtit, perched watchfully atop a strand of barbed No 8 fence wire. Naturally petite, in Carryer’s hands these round-bodied birds are larger than life, as if asserting their right to survive in territory claimed and controlled by man.

Carryer’s works also include a pair of kaka, a native parrot related to the cheeky kea. Here the kaka soar free above the iron-clad rooftops of Wellington suburbia, wings outstretched against the sky. Yet their carefree flight belies the truth; kaka require access to large tracts of forest in order to survive.

Even more critically endangered is our large night parrot, the kakapo. Carryer’s curious kakapo toys with a poi, the flightless bird seemingly oblivious to the danger of playing with the world of man. Another of Carryer’s kakapo grips in its beak a rope, pulled taut by a human hand. Is this a tussle between man and nature, or could this be the hand of Maui, pulling the kakapo back from the brink of extinction?

Carryer’s sculptural works are both expressive and thought-provoking – we welcome you to stop by Zimmerman this month to view them all.