Tieke Pair (Kelp) (2012)
cast glass, beak up: 223 x 347 x 125 mm, beak down: 240 x 305 x 122 mm
Waka Huia (Red) (2012)
cast glass, size: 145 x 530 x 133 mm
Matuku Moana Pair (Black) (2013) cast glass, beak up: 397 x 300 x 118 mm, beak down: 280 x 373 x 110 mm
Koreke Pair (Red) (2012)
cast glass, beak up: 168 x 203 x 135 mm, beak down: 138 x 205 x 133 mm
5 Waka Huia (Clear) (2012) cast glass, size: 105 x 450 x 137 mm
Hoiho Pair (Black) (2012)
cast glass, large: 443 x 180 x 138 mm, small: 320 x 148 x 118 mm
Resolution Island Bowl (Buller Still Life) (2013) cast glass, size: 210 x 212 x 302 mm
Stephens Island Urn (Buller Still Life) (2012) cast glass, size (v x ø): 425 x 277 mm
Kowhaiwhai Jug (Buller Still Life) (2012)
cast glass, size: 460 x 235 x 140 mm
Takahe Book (Buller Still Life) (2013) cast glass, size: 130 x 345 x 242 mm
Mike Crawford is the most significant emergent new voice in New Zealand glass art.
He has pioneered a formal language which is uniquely his own: his works are symbolic, abstracted forms with an ever-present figurative impulse.
He uses allusion, implication and key attributes of birds as narrative devices to underpin the primacy of form and the significant role of a drawn or incised line. These establish and constitute the substance of his individual style and the unmistakeable artistic character of his work.
The Bird Collector explicitly references Walter Buller’s complex and conflicted status as an author of one of the great ornithological books of New Zealand and as a bird collector who was directly involved in the extinction of some of our native birds. Crawford has also used “the nuances of J.G. Keuleman’s engravings”(1) in the development of his forms.
In works such as Tieke Pair (Kelp) (2012) and Koreke Pair (Red) Crawford explores the male and female form, abstracting the neck and beak and the expanding shape to suggest both wings and body, while at the same time it is also and essentially a vessel with handles.
Crawford’s masterful use of implication is especially evident in the tall and slender Matuku Moana (2013) where the increased scale has allowed him to play with the cantilever weighting and to introduce sensations of “imbalance in this long-necked, long-legged bird”.
Crawford’s works are very elegant and have a fully-realised stature. In the new form Hoiho (2012) we see “how the oily blackness of the acid etched glass” resonates “with the feathers of the bird.”(1) The fluid, rising line articulates and positions the body of the bird and the creased lip establishes its disposition.
Crawford is a maker of objects that reference history and place, too. The Stephens Island Urn (2012) carries the memory of place and event. It “depicts the well-known story of the Lighthouse Keeper’s cat – purported to have caused the extinction of the Stephens Island Wren.” (1) The Wren was also first described by Buller. Crawford’s use of this circumstance is poignantly allegorical, yet both restrained and incisive, being wonderfully delivered in the round tableaux.
The Kowhaiwhai Jug (2012) reflects Crawford’s Maori/European ancestry and continues his exploration of objects as containers (such as in the Waka Huia works). “This work alludes to the trade and collection of traditional Maori objects and the further appropriation of Maori motifs, patterns that were produced overseas around the turn of last century.” (1) His adaptation of a traditional carving relief pattern on a water jug further adds new dialogues into his work.
1.ArtistNotes,21January2013
MIKE CRAWFORD
"Mike Crawford is... the creator of elegant, often intricately carved, cast glass hue (gourds), bones and teeth. Working on a small scale, thereby increasing the sense that these are pieces to be treasured, Crawford reworks traditional Maori art forms and artefacts, conveying subtle commentaries on multicultural New Zealand." (1)
"The recognition of Dutch still life paintings, in themselves often created as memento mori, lends another layer to this reading. Memento mori or vanitas paintings, intended as reminders of the fleeting nature of youth, of life, and of the passage of time, have prevailed in European art for centuries. While Crawford’s groupings do not display the more blatant motifs, the solemnity of their colouration and the forms’ evocation of historic ways of life contribute to a similar effect." (2)
Michael Crawford has a Bachelor of Design majoring in Sculpture from UNITEC School of Design in Auckland. In 2006 he was a finalist in the Ranamok Australian and New Zealand glass prize. His work features in the public collections of Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, The Dowse Art Museum and Waikato Museum as well as private collections in Zealand, Australia and North America. In 2010 Crawford’s 'Moa Bowl' was selected for the prestigious applied arts and design exhibition 'Talente' in Munich, Germany.
1.JoannaTrezise,Pango:MikeCrawford,2008 2.Ibid
Koreke (NZ Quail) (2012)
EDUCATION
MIKE CRAWFORD
b. 1979, lives Napier
2002 Graduated from Bachelor of Design Degree (Sculpture Major) Unitec School of Design, Auckland
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2013 The Bird Collector, milford galleries queenstown
2012 Bird Lore, Masterworks, Auckland
Art on Life, New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, Wellington
2010 Mantel, Masterworks, Auckland
2008 Pango, Masterworks, Auckland
2007 Hue, Masterworks, Auckland
2005 Mihi, Masterworks, Auckland
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2012 The Review, milford galleries queenstown
The Royal Queenstown Easter Show, milford galleries queenstown
Chosen, milford galleries queenstown
2011 Summer Show, Milford Galleries Dunedin
The Familiar Ben Pierce, Mike Crawford, Black Barn Gallery, Hawkes Bay
Nga Pou Whenua, Waikato Museum, Hamilton
Traverse, Milford Galleries Dunedin
The Royal Queenstown Easter Show, milford galleries queenstown
2010 Talente, Munich, Germany
Wallace Art Award, Touring Exhibition, The Dowse Art Museum
The Earl Street Journal, milford galleries queenstown
2009 Glass 09, milford galleries queenstown
Glass : Ann Robinson, Layla Walter, Mike Crawford, Black Barn Gallery, Hawkes Bay
Intimate, Masterworks, Auckland
2007 Ranamok Contemporary Glass Travelling Exhibition, Australia
2006 The Gift Exchange, New Dowse Gallery, Lower Hutt
2005 NZSAG Members Show
2004 NZ Glass, Masterworks, Auckland
2003 Absolut Invitational Exhibition
2003
2002
AWARDS
NZ Glass, Masterworks, Auckland
NZ Glass, Masterworks, Auckland
2012 Creative New Zealand New Work Funding
2011 Selected New Zealand Artist, New Glass Review, Corning Museum of Glass
2010 Selected Artist Wallace Art Award, Auckland
Selected New Zealand artist, Talente 2010, Munich, Germany
2008 Creative New Zealand, New Work Funding
2007 Finalist in Ranamok Prize for Contemporary Glass
COLLECTIONS
The Dowse Art Museum
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Waikato Museum
University of Waikato
Represented in private collections in New Zealand, Australia and America
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2008 Trezise, Joanna, Pango: Mike Crawford, Masterworks Gallery, Auckland, 2008
MikeCrawford2013CV
milford galleries queenstown www.milfordgalleries.co.nz
