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The Centaur at Gasworks, Part 2
'The Picasso Centaur' at the 'Gasworks Outdoor Sculpture Program 2003 - Series 1', at Gasworks Arts Park, Port Melbourne, July-August 2003. Gloss enamel paint on plywood Sculpture, 2100mm high.
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The Centaur at Gasworks, Part 2
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This sculpture, 'The Picasso Centaur', is the same sculpture that was exhibited at the Becton Sculpture Biennial show at Gasworks in 2002 with a new surface image painted on to it. The difference is amazing. Whilst the form is identical, the appearance of it is clearly not.
The sculpture also sits in a new location within the Gasworks Park which adds to the changed appearance. In 2002, the Centaur stood in a round and clear red brick paved amphitheatre with a similar tall brick wall of a building behind. In 2003, the newly painted Centaur stands at the junction of four paths and in the centre of a raised circular garden bed (without the garden). The area is overshadowed and surrounded by native Australian trees. This change in context works to the advantage of the new sculpture to promote the camouflage effect of the painted form. At first when I looked at the photos taken of the form, I thought they were very bad photos, and whilst they may not be perfect from a photographers perspective, they do highlight the way the form merges into the landscape and is difficult to see. This was the effect I had intended.
The form has been painted in glossy oil based paint, in contrast to the matt acrylic of the all-white form of 2002. The base coat for most of the form is a combination of black and brown reflecting the tones of the skin of a horse. These pieces are also covered with a series of ‘eyespots’ as per the eyespots of butterflies and fish and a several faces that were fabricated from random marks on the painted surfaces. The major 'human' piece of the centaur form is primarily in pink to reflect the skin tones of the centaur's upper torso.
These two contrasting sections of the sculpture are highlighted in the photos through the way they either stand out from or recede into the landscape. The bright white, pink and blue colored forms also stand out from the black and brown surfaces.
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