Big Scrub

160cm x 180cm x 60cm

Salvaged Automotive plastics, sealed metal frame, Stainless steel & galvanised fasteners

2019

Big Scrub was made for the 2019 Ingenuity Sculpture Festival, Mullumbimby. It was accepted and exhibited and was awarded the Non -Acquisitive Prize.

Accompanying the piece was the following poem;

The Scrub Turkey would like its Big Scrub back.

Its done with the rubbish and the Cul de sac

They gave it a go but the problem’s too big

Can’t compare an ornamental to a strangler fig

Its done with the nickname that treats it with dismay

And wonders who is the bin chicken anyway?

For who is the one who cut down the Big Scrub

And left the poor thing in search of it’s grub?

The Scrub Turkey can see that there’s hope in the seeds

Planted by Big Scrub Landcare’s incredible deeds

For the gratitude required to see one percent is still left

and be emboldened to action instead of bereft

Is truly an example of a responsible lesson

In seeing what we have as an earthly blessing

Scrub Turkey and Big Scrub all come from one mother

the way we treat one reflects how we treat the other

So with that in mind the Scrub Turkey deserves dignation

and will in turn promote the Big Scrub regeneration.

The Bundjalung Nation ( The Byron Shire) holds within it a magic that has inspired me since I was young. I am deeply connected to this land having spent a large part of my formative years as an artist exploring the coast & hinterland in search of the mystical and the sacred that this place seems to cultivate. I am very grateful that a large body of my sculptural work is collected in this region and I am compelled to continue an artistic relationship with this land. Big Scrub is a piece I made to firstly honour this land through the symbol of the Scrub Turkey. I also want to give a dignity to this bird acknowledging the importance it has within the Bundjalung culture and the Dreaming and also the importance it has ecologically and how it can represent the important work of the local Big Scrub Landcare movement. The Big Scrub was a region of subtropical lowland rainforest that existed here pre European settlement and for which 1% remains or 750Ha that is scattered in various remnants around the shire. The sculpture is made from a welded metal frame and clad with automotive plastics or (bumper bars) that are salvaged from my local smash repairers. This material is incredibly durable and vibrant and I have been exploring as a medium for the last few years. The bumper bars have within them a broader metaphor. The modern car from which these materials come from can be seen as a symbol of status and fast paced capitilism. But each one of these bumpers that have been sourced from smash repairers have been involved in a crash, prang or smash that has involved a car or cars coming to a grinding stop. This physical action I see as a metaphor to define a yearning that many people hold for this run away capitalism to slam on the brakes and come to an abrupt stop.