Steve Carr
In Bloom (Waiheke), 2024, bronze.
Courtesy Station, Melbourne and Sydney, and Michael Lett, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland.
At first glance, In Bloom may look like a casual arrangement of car tyres. However, its petrolhead nonchalance is an illusion. The tyres are actually cast in bronze, and proudly feature logos of the artist’s name. Craft masquerades as readymade! Carr has gone to great trouble, while appearing to have gone to none at all. To date, he has shown In Bloom at Auckland’s Britomart, Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery, Christchurch Art Gallery, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, and Michael Lett, here in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, in Sydney. He usually treats the tyres as a vase, working with gardeners and botanists to create bespoke plantings within them. But, here, In Bloom is shown for the first time in ‘nature’, less framing it than being framed by it.
Steve Carr (b.1976) is based in Ōtautahi/Christchurch, where he is a Senior Lecturer in Film and Sculpture at Ilam School of Fine Arts. He completed an MFA at Elam School of Fine Arts, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, in 2003. He works in photography and film, sculpture and performance. His work featured in Freedom Farmers at Auckland Art Gallery, in 2013, and Bullet Time, City Gallery Wellington, in 2016. His project Chasing the Lightwas presented at Christchurch Art Gallery, in 2018, and at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and City Gallery Wellington, in 2019. He had a two-person show with Christian Lamont, Fading to the Sky, at Te Uru, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, in 2021.
