Sculptor Profile
Sean Crawford
Follow my Path, Laser cut Corten steel Pīwakawaka, Corten steel panels and steel extrusion.
Kōwhai, Edition 2/5. Laser cut Stainless steel Kowhai panels, Stainless steel extrusion with a powder coat render.
Pōhutukawa, Edition 2/5. Laser cut Stainless steel Pohutakawa panels, Stainless steel extrusion with a powder coat render.
Folllow my Path
The ocean vessel ‘Wild Deer’ steers to starboard as huddled bodies shelter on deck. With lungs in search of fresh sea air, the figurehead of ‘Dianna the Huntress’ cuts through the brine of the churning Southern seas. As night slowly lowers her veil, a group of stars forming a cross, point the settlers to a new land. A mystical overseer in a brave new world - the ‘Wild Deer’ is leaving the familiar, the ‘known’, and entering a new land of myth and legend.
The ‘Wild Deer’ was one of the colonial clippers’ bound for Port Chalmers, New Zealand. She started her run in 1871, her primary cargo being settlers for a new land. She completed ten journeys before tragically running aground and sinking off the coast of Glasgow in 1882. By this stage, the use of charts and instruments were helpful, however the stars were often still used to provide reassurance in the form of ‘checks and balances’.
The Southern Cross has always been known as a directional marker - either mystical (by pre-Europeans) or heavenly (due to the imagery of the cross). However, both Polynesian sailors and their European counterparts saw it as a sign of spiritual guidance - pointing the way to early voyages into the Southern seas - as well as a navigational tool to find the ‘true south’ celestial pole. It is also is known by at least eight different names in Māori, many with contrasting stories. For example, Tainui Māori named it Te Punga - as they saw it as the anchor of ‘the great sky canoe’, whereas, to Wairarapa-based Māori it was Māhutonga – an aperture in Te Ikaroa (the Milky Way) through which storm winds escaped.
In this sculpture I have placed the Stag (an introduced species) as a representation of the settlers traversing the globe. The deer cutting a path through the native bush becomes an embodiment of the ship - as it cuts its way through the ocean - with passengers in search of a better life. His form is mapped by the flight of the indigenous Piwakawaka (Fantail) - a celestial messenger bridging both physical and spiritual domains. She becomes symbolic of the new world and all it’s wonder and possibilities, whilst the Stag represents the settlers - alien in our strange land.
The title of this piece makes reference to journeys, as well to a spiritual realm where cultural meanings are interwoven. The panel that the Stag emerges from symbolises the sky, or the celestial realm. The constellation of the Southern Cross is created by the silhouetted cut-outs of the Pīwakawaka. These silhouetted shapes on the panel also create a gateway of sorts, affording the Pīwakawaka movement - as per Maori oral history - between these realms. Able to traverse all paths - land, sky and the realms that exist beyond - she also becomes a guide to the mystical spell woven from the stars.
Kōwhai and Pōhutukawa
In Kōwhai and Pōhutukawa, part of the Nature of Surveillance series, these works continue to explore ideas of times past and present. Specifically, New Zealand’s colonised past by early settlers, and a critique of ‘colonial thinking’. A prominently held view at the time was that ‘the natural’ was at its best when ordered into patterns. For when nature is subdued in this manner, we can more easily claim dominion over it. In direct relation to the colonial surveying of land in New Zealand, the function of patterns - as they took form on a grid - was to enable the land to be managed by being mapped. The purpose of this was so the land could become a sellable commodity.
By their shape, ‘The Nature of Surveillance’ reveal themselves to be security cameras. Their form, however, is made by repeated patterns of indigenous flora and fauna. These pattern-forming organic motifs are similar in style to the patterned Victorian wallpaper of the times. They elude to the idea that, when in its range, we too, become a natural object moving through the camera's field of vision.
In present times, we know the stated purpose of a security camera is to record information, but what is the impact on humanity of this relentless surveillance? With our ‘tracked and traced’ movements recorded as patterns, this is juxtaposed with the interesting idea that it is within these patterns, that you also become identified. For example, in the context of facial recognition software, it is the face that becomes surveyed like land, as it is the uniqueness in the patterns of one's face that enables us to be mapped.
This work hopes to remind of the solace we once felt being inconspicuous in the landscape. Whatever side of the fence you sit on concerning the current methods of surveillance worldwide, it is undeniable that we, as a people, have an altered understanding of our freedoms. With recent global upheavals and the move to a digitally surveyed society, it is through these patterns of technology, that we have also become locatable, traceable and mappable. And as we all now know - our data becomes sellable. Our personal and private have blurred with the collective whole. Whilst more patterns of information are collected - our sense of anonymity is becoming lost.
This series includes other variations that are available for commission (White, made from a native white clematis. Metallic dark purple, made from pīwakawaka).
Sean Crawford is a successful New Zealand sculptor. Originally Wellington-based but now living in the rural Wairarapa, his works are found, and sought after, nationally and overseas. Although he initially trained as a plumber, overseas travel rekindled his passion for art and design. On his return to New Zealand, he graduated with an honors degree in Design in 2003, and has been a full-time sculptor ever since.
Crawford's inspirations are as varied as they are evolving. Techniques he learned from his boat-building father interweave with creativity that frequently highlights environmental and social messages. History plays a role with some of Sean’s works questioning the contradictions of New Zealand's colonial past, whilst also being influenced by the Gothic storyteller Edgar Allen Poe and the paintings of Bill Hammond.
Highlights of Crawford's career to date include the 2015 commission 'Waiting for Hammond', a two metre tall Huia bird sculpture set on a headland overlooking the Irish Sea. Nationally, his public work ‘The Head of John Doe’ was installed in Palmerston North in early 2022, and is sited near the entrance to the Te Manawa Arts Centre. His latest public sculpture is found in Masterton (in the Wairarapa). Titled ‘Distant Chant’, this two-piece work is made from corten steel. It stands approximately three meters high and depicts both male and female Huia's ‘in flight’
Passionate for art to be as accessible as possible to all, Sean’s work is now being seen in even more public spaces, both in New Zealand and abroad. Outside the New Zealand embassy in Washington D.C. sits another commissioned piece. This work is titled ‘The Cloak of Remembrance’ and is a truly embracing cloak made of laser cut red poppies.
It's a sign that his ideas, although largely home-grown, are respected and relevant on the world stage.
