Previous Image     Go to Image Gallery 17     Next Image

"The Sculpture Terrace is a special outdoor site for exhibitions at Te Papa. Works are commissioned specifically for this space. On the outer court of the Sculpture Terrace, artist Maddie Leach has constructed a full-scale, fully functional 4.9m plywood sailing boat - a 'trailer sailer'. It sits high and dry above the harbour, like a lifeboat on the deck of a larger craft. It's the kind of do-it-yourself boat made by backyard boatbuilders - part of the long history of sailing culture in this island nation. My Blue Peninsula is about both the reality and the idea of sailing, with all its associations of freedom, leisure, and mobility. It's about love, longing, and sadness, about getting ready, preparing to say goodbye, studying the maps, putting plans in place for departure - but being unable to go anywhere. The title of the work comes from the poem 'it might be lonelier' by Emily Dickinson. Maddie Leach, a Wellington-based sculptor and installation artist, explores ideas about spaces and structures of leisure pursuits in her work. My Blue Peninsula continues her practice of conceptual art - art as an exploration of ideas - within the tradition of minimalist sculpture. Leach deliberately counters the coolness of minimalism by infusing her work with ideas of the romantic." Source: Te Papa (www.tepapa.org)