Current Exhibition
For the month of April 2019, ZIMMERMAN is exhibiting "The Fallen", a series of new art work by Palmerston North artist Fran Dibble.
Fran Dibble's exhibition comprises a mix of bronze works and paintings. Some of the bronze works are standalone objects, assuming the shape of falling leaves blowing across the gallery walls. A few of these bronze leaf forms appear to have lightly fallen to rest upon bronze books, while others are seemingly caught mid-flight, to become forever attached to the paintings on the walls.
Several of the artworks feature 24 carat gold gilding – an element the artist has incorporated in both paintings and sculpture in recent years.
The Fallen - artist's statement:
“I often think of the way the very common and mundane unite us in a shared experience, the simple treasures of the natural world creating delight across all the boundaries that now separate people – economic and political, educational levels and racial backgrounds – a world which might be more intermixed and meshed but somehow still managing to be fractionalized. It is a simplistic world view no doubt, and highly romantic, but one that I am happy to play with.
An exhibition on falling leaves has this democratised ideal at its core, the experience of leaves fluttering from the skies enjoyed everywhere (or at least in places with deciduous trees).
The leaves are each individually copied from real counter-parts, modeled in wax using wax sheets before being cast in bronze.
Leaves are very varied things, not just over the many species (sycamores, oaks, ginkgo, maples, plane trees, chestnuts and magnolia are represented here to name a few), but also in the different breeds within a species. They demonstrate a beauty and subtlety in things deemed value-less and transient.
In their own modest presence, they demonstrate the ‘big’ things in life too, like studies in physics demonstrating the passage of time with their drop each year, and the continual presence of gravity pulling things to earth.
The bronze leaves make up the main subject of the paintings, but they also flutter outside the frame to pitch down across the gallery walls, linking the artworks into a giant diorama.”
Exhibition runs from 1 to 30 April 2019
Brief artist bio:
Born in Connecticut (USA) in 1962, Fran immigrated to New Zealand with her family as a teenager.
Fran holds a B.Sc. in Biochemistry and Botany, a M.Sc. (Hons) in Biochemistry and a BA in Philosophy. Fran’s interest in these disciplines informs her artistic practice, encompassing both painting and bronze sculpture.
The artist draws inspiration from the natural environment, and scientific theories such as principles of gravity. Fran’s interest in bronze developed as part of her work with her husband, acclaimed sculptor Paul Dibble.
Fran was awarded a Queen’s Service Medal for services to art in 2007, and in 2012 was made an Honorary Fellow of the Universal College of Learning in Palmerston North.
Fran has exhibited with ZIMMERMAN since 2011.
