River Proverb (preliminary drawing for sculpture installation)

River Proverb (preliminary drawing for sculpture installation)

This work is a preliminary drawing for Chris Booth's sculpture installation 'River proverb' at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in January 1986. In the Gallery courtyard the artist constructed a small grove of stripped kanuka branches. More branches with channels cut along their lengths were propped and angled to run down to huge hollowed-out river boulders set in a circle. Three furnaces were also set up. At about 8 o'clock on a wet and windy evening, bronze was heated in the furnaces and the molten metal poured down into the channels of the kanuka, in an enactment of the flow of rivers to the sea. Several months later, the installation was dismantled and the kanuka branches returned to the bush to rot down.

Booth was brought up in rural Northland. He learnt early to appreciate his surroundings and learnt the importance of conservation. These issues form the subject-matter of his sculpture, and determine his materials: he uses branches, rocks, driftwood, toi-toi, and other materials from the natural environment.