Joe Sheehan, Mokomoko Rd, 2019. Argillite (omaui), 35cm x 26cm x 19cm. Courtesy: the artist and Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland.

Tim Melville presents a series of 10 new stone sculptures by Joe Sheehan. The exhibition is a development of Sheehan’s Nirvana series, expanded now to encompass a number of larger-scale floor-based works.

Sheehan explains: “I’ve always been attracted to blue-collar buildings; old workshops, dilapidated barns, suburban State Houses. I like humble structures that are worn in an interesting way; it’s the way that they sit on, or in, the land that pulls me in. With these new works I wanted, somehow, to carve those fleeting memories and to place the viewer where I stood.”

The stone for Sheehan’s new sculptures, mainly basalt and argillite, was sourced from an abandoned quarry in Greenhills, at the bottom of the South Island between Invercargill and Bluff.

Real Estate is Sheehan’s sixth exhibition with Tim Melville.

Exhibition opens: 6–8pm Tuesday 24 September 2019

Follow this artist