Hosting the Cuckoo at McPherson Gallery

In the Tekapo Canal, brown and rainbow trout lurk under the cages of the salmon farms, eating the steroid-laced salmon food and faeces and growing to monstrous proportions.

"You can see them coming out of water with this huge splash. There is a lot of mythology around them, with the anglers having these secret lures they claim are needed to catch them," says Christchurch sculptor Bing Dawe.

Dawe has caught one in wood in his new show at the McPherson Gallery, then painted it to look as if it could be aged bronze.

"I wanted the surface to look like those stuffed trout you see in antique shops, which have gone brown and a bit mottled."

The effect of the colour, the overlarge fish and the energy Dawe imbues in it as it drapes over a wire hoop speak of a dark undertone to the landscape.

Indeed, the former freezing worker fits the "Canterbury gothic" tag which led to him being included in a group show at Christchurch Art Gallery called Coming Home in the Dark (the title based on an Owen Marshall short story) with artists such as Bill Hammond, Barry Cleavin, Tony Fomison and Trevor Moffitt. "I felt at home," he laughs.

Dawe was born in Oamaru 53 years ago, and graduated from Ilam in 1976.

A keen angler, Dawe is aware the natural world can quickly turn wild and weird, and that human intrusion is often a threat to its native denizens. Many of his works relate to conservation battles he has been drawn into.

On one wall, a flock of ceramic bird parts wheel and dive. The work, Diverting and Defending, is a reference to Marlborough's Wairau River, where TrustPower intends to carry off water for hydroelectric power.

"When I fish that river I have been attacked by the black fronted terns which nest there. The title refers to the idea of diverting the river, and to the way the bird has of defending its nest by diverting people away," Dawe says.

Breaking up the birds and contrasting them against metal hoops gives a sense of movement. It also introduces the idea of "head count".

The title piece refers to the cuckoo's practice of laying its eggs in another bird's nest and leaving them to raise the chicks.

In the South Island, the host is the yellowhead, which is a tenth of its size. In the North Island, grey warblers or whiteheads tend to be the unwitting hosts.

"It came from a period when I spent a lot of time in Queenstown, and I came into contact with a lot of overseas people who were buying land in New Zealand for what they described as a bolt hole.

"Just like the cuckoo, they sit in the native bird's nest, then leave again."

What: Hosting the Cuckoo, by Bing Dawe
Where and when: McPherson Gallery, Vulcan Lane, to Nov 19