Snazzy steel banana peel: new sculpture award winner

Everyone can expect to slip up from time to time, and that’s fine.

That’s the light-hearted theme behind Auckland artist Brittany Walker Smith’s winning submission for a newly established prize in public sculpture.

Walker Smith, a doctoral student at the University of Auckland’s Elam, is the inaugural recipient of the Collin Post Sculpture Award and Longveld Plinth Award.

The award, which is only open to current Elam students, will see Walker Smith’s concept, One Foot in the Grave, the Other on a Banana Peel, created to represent a large banana peel and displayed on a specially constructed plinth in the Elam gardens at the end of year.

Elam lecturer Associate Professor Fiona Jack, one of the judging panel, says everyone agreed the proposal “demonstrates ambition, humour and strong potential for development”.

The award comes with a one-week residency in Brisbane to develop the concept into a ‘digital design package’ at UAP (Urban Art Projects), a globally recognised art consultancy and manufacturer with studios and workshops around the world.

One of the particular areas of expertise at UAP’s Brisbane manufacturing base is sandcasting, an artisan process where molten metal, including bronze, aluminium and stainless steel, is poured and cast within sand moulds.

“During the residency, Brittany and Ruth Wilson (Elam lecturer and artist) will be immersed in everything from sand casting, curation, design, advanced manufacturing and estimating to pattern making, fabrication, finishing, patina and paint,” says UAP curator and artist residency coordinator Tess Bakharia.

Bakharia says the pair will also receive hands-on advice from UAP’s team of expert makers, as well as getting the chance to engage directly with Brisbane’s broader arts industry through visits to key organisations and institutions.

The work will then be made by Longveld, an award-winning engineering and custom metal fabrication company based in Hamilton.

Longveld managing director Pam Roa says the company is excited to see the level of enthusiasm and talent the students have bought to the table over the last couple of months.

“Special congratulations to Brittany Walker Smith for being selected to receive the award. We can’t wait to get into the workshop and bring her idea to life.”

Walker Smith says she’s “stoked with the incredible opportunity,” really looking forward to going to Brisbane, and got so much out of the proposal process, even before finding out she’d won.

“I really liked the fact that we got feedback and critique on our proposals as that so rarely happens.”

She says the banana peel idea is an extension of previous works she’s done (in materials like felt and glitter) of both every day and luxury objects, with nods to artists like Warhol and Duchamp.

“I enjoy the slapstick comedy of the banana peel as a symbol of failure. These things are going to occur; you're going slip up.”

It also connects to her own experience as an undergraduate art student.

“The most failure I ever had was in my undergrad years!”

Walker Smith’s work draws on the visual language of velvet paintings, romance imagery and decorative excess.

She says her practice “leans into fantasy as both a coping mechanism and a form of critique, where glamour, humour and material indulgence sit alongside discomfort and contradiction.”

She’s looking forward to working in metal, a medium she had to specifically consider in her proposal.
 

Jack says the panellists were thrilled with the quality of the proposals overall and the other finalists, Caixia Tan, Sophie Drury and Aime Chao, are also to be congratulated.

“The level of student engagement throughout this process has been extraordinary. The students embraced a demanding brief with ambition and intellectual rigour, and the growth we witnessed in them over such a short period of time was genuinely remarkable.”

She says one of the most exciting aspects of the award has been watching students engage directly with the realities of public sculpture.

“From concept development and site specificity through to engineering and problem solving, it’s been an invaluable learning experience for everyone involved.”

Award donors, the Post family, who are based in Wellington, are very excited to see their vision coming to life.

Family spokesperson Charlie Post says he’s delighted to be in this partnership with the University of Auckland and to have the support of Longveld and UAP.

“It appears the future of sculpture in New Zealand is strong. We’re particularly excited for Brittany Walker Smith to have been selected as the first winner and can’t wait to see the progression of her work.”
 

Jack says the standard of the ten semi-finalists’ proposals, and those of the four finalists, “exceeded all expectations”.

“What was especially moving was seeing students at very different stages of their education rise to the challenge and produce work with real public potential. We had second-year Bachelor of Fine Art students working alongside doctoral candidates, all learning from each other.”

She says the process demonstrated exactly why pathways into public art are so important for emerging artists.

“The students were able to test ideas, respond to professional feedback and develop an understanding of how ambitious concepts can become buildable public works.”

The award will see a new sculpture commissioned and created for the Elam garden plinth each year.