Peter Nicholls

Peter Nicholls was born in Wanganui, New Zealand, educated at the Canterbury University School of Fine Arts, Auckland Teachers' College, Elam School of Fine Arts, and gained a Masters in Sculpture at the University of Wisconsin at Superior, USA. Nicholls has numerous large-scale works in private and public collections internationally.





As it IS on earth  (2011- 2013)

Working since the early 1960s in sculptural construction in wood and steel. Initially in a landscape  setting  similar to the organic naturalism of English and Italian Arte Povera movements.

Large scale commissions in the 1980s evolved into sitings of place where historical connections are made with place and memory.  Since 2000 an emphasis on ecology, a zooming in to issues pertinent to species survival in our  global warming crisis.

Bill Mckibben in his international lecture tours and books, ‘THE END OF NATURE’  and ‘EAARTH’, postulates with authority on these issues. My response is that of the following images.

as it IS on earth   

Prehuman New Zealand swamp kauri, referencing ancient kauri forests,flightless bird life
Dimensions: variable

photograph Paul Donovan

as it IS on earth (detail)

photograph Paul Donovan

Shield

stitchbird, burnished mild steel 

Dimensions: 260 x 500 x 185mm

Shield (detail) 

saddleback,  burnished mild steel 

 Dimensions: 260 x 500 x 185mm

Voice
Painted cherry
Dimensions: 230 x 160 x 990mm

Old Blue  

Irish Yew  

Dimensions: 610 x 590 x 55mm

Tribute to Don Merton, for saving the black robin.

Breath     

Swamp kauri and cast aluminium  

Dimensions: 160 x 320 x 200mm

The interloper the indigenous. Ulex Europeus (gorse). 

A seed introduced, a seed that spread, a seed condemned, a seed that survived, 

a seed that shelters, then falls away, but returns.