Fiona Garlick

Featured Artist

About Fiona

Born in England, Fiona lived in Kenya and Zimbabwe before immigrating to New Zealand in 1976. Her first degree was a BA in English Literature at Victoria University Wellington. After 15 years working in the television industry as a documentary director and producer she fell out of love for the medium and realised a long time ambition to do a Fine Arts Degree. Living in London at the time, she began with an Arts Foundation course at Camberwell College of Art before moving to Cornwall to study at Falmouth College of Arts. It was here that Fiona made her first bronze medal The Wave, which won first Prize for the British Art Medal Society Student Award in 2005. Much of her early sculptural work drew from the wild coastline and sea, and, realising she was missing the New Zealand landscape Fiona moved home to Auckland. In 2008 she graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts with a BFA (Honours).

Fiona is passionate about sculpture being a public experience and has exhibited in many outdoor sculpture shows including Stoneleigh Sculpture in the Gardens at the Auckland Botanic Gardens, NZ Sculpture on Shore, Tai Tapu Sculpture Gardens and Sculpture on the Peninsula in Christchurch. She has also has work installed at Brick Bay Sculpture Trail.
It was whilst taking part in Sculpture in the Gardens that she was introduced to members of Medal Art New Zealand (MANZ) who invited her to join the group. It is this collaboration that has allowed her to develop and refine her skills in the art of bronze and has led to several commissions.
Fiona is represented by ARTIS Gallery in Auckland. Her work is held in private collections throughout New Zealand and overseas.
Fiona now lives in Arrowtown, Otago and is practicing full time as a sculptor, predominantly in bronze. Her work is very much influenced by her environment with the pervasive theme of Charming Invaders – a response to the historical landscape of Central Otago and the wider tension between introduced and native species of flora and fauna in New Zealand. 

Piwakawaka and the pinecone

Cast bronze and bluestone 
1600 x 300 x 350mm 
Edition 6 of 7

PIWAKAWAKA AND THE PINECONE (2021) is part of an ongoing body of sculptural work looking at the tension caused by the historical introduction of non native plants and animals to the New Zealand landscape.
Living in a town like Arrowtown which relies upon the incredible autumnal colours of its introduced plant species for its tourism, no where is this tension more apparent. Most weekends groups of volunteers scale the hills to control the wilding pines spreading across the landscape, yet at the same time we respect and protect the giant historic sycamores and oaks that act as memorials to the people who came from afar to settle here.
The idea for this work came to me during the Covid lockdown in Arrowtown . As in most places in New Zealand, we noticed the huge increase in native bird life in our urban environment. In particular the population of piwakawaka (fantails) seemed to explode. Walking the hills with my young son we would pull up all the young wilding pines we could see along the path. The fantails seemed to celebrate our work by flitting happily around us.
According to some Maori mythology, the piwakawaka is a messenger, bringing death or news of death from the gods to the people. Perched atop the pinecone could this cheeky little messenger be heralding the demise of our native landscape to the invading pine?