Bigger and better bugs are back

By DON MILNE

Auckland once had an attraction called Microworld, in which beasts, bugs and objects of interest were blown up big and shown on television screens.

Kids loved the close-ups of such things as giant weta but the public failed to support the venture and it fell over.

Now the giant weta are back in town, thanks to a South Island sculptor - and this time they are appealing to a very adult audience.

The Mark Hill show of sculptures formed from ceramic and glass power insulators and beautifully fabricated stainless steel tubes and panels opened at art auctioneer Dunbar Sloane's Remuera gallery last week.

Art sponsor and collector James Wallace opened the show and indicated his esteem for the artist by buying Love Bugs, one of the biggest pieces on display at 1.8m high.

About 70 per cent of the works sold at the opening, and interest for the few works left and in commissions for similar pieces has been running high.

A graphic designer by training in Queensland, 35-year-old Mark Hill bears easily having a father who at one time was probably the most recognised man in New Zealand or Australia. "Michael Hill, jeweller," was the catchphrase that took him into households throughout the two countries.

Now Michael Hill lives near Queenstown, as has Mark for the past seven years, and is developing a golf course near Arrowtown.

"I was becoming less interested in design and more in sculpture," Mark said after the opening. "I was fascinated by big power insulators - their forms, their potential. I started collecting them, from power stations, repair gangs, anywhere I could find them.

"Then I went to the source, Temuka Potteries. They produce a vast range of interesting shapes. I thought, 'What happens if I combine them with stainless steel?' "

So he taught himself welding.

When his father wanted an art work to enhance a small lake on the golf course, "I wondered, what about dragonflies? Floating above the water? And it led on from there."

The result? Two-metre wide dragonflies, a cave weta 1.6m high, a scarily realistic giant weta 1.4m high.

"Any of these can go outside or in water," Mark says. "They're virtually indestructible. They look great on a lawn." Or, judging from the interest shown in Auckland, in a serious art collection.

What next for Mark Hill? "I like what I'm doing now, but I can see sculpture becoming my life's work. Even as a little kid I liked working with clay, making shapes. Perhaps my work will trend towards the more abstract. Who knows."

Exhibition

*Who: Sculpture, by Mark Hill

*Where and when: Dunbar Sloane Gallery, 20 St Marks Rd, Newmarket, today 8.30am-5pm