Q1: Terry, you are one of a generation of artists who are still very active. In your case, is it because the spark of new ideas for work and the lure of new challenges to be tackled has never waned?
Terry Stringer: For me, it has been a lifetime of pursuing one idea. I have to say that I am making the same sculpture over and over, and that it changes just a little each time, each piece of it being a new puzzle to solve. In the making of a work two contradictory ideas are clashed together — perhaps one subject transforms into another as the work is turned, or it might be that a figure that has been distorted for formal reasons needs to be brought to life.
Q2: And what is it about working in bronze that drives that energy?
TS: Painted wood carving is what I respond to most strongly, but bronze is also hard and permanent and has the great advantage in that when I am pleased with a result more than one copy can be made by editioning. However bronze comes with its history, and I am thinking here of our city fathers on plinths. It took me some time to make out of it my own approach to form, which is as if each piece is carved from that block of wood.
Q3: This book has been a collaboration with its editor, Linda Tyler, and the guest writers, and especially with the photographer Jane Ussher. What pleasure did that bring you?
TS: A team of people were involved in the making of the book, each with different skills and judgements and decisions I trusted. I am delighted with the book that came out of their combined talents. From the beginning the book was envisaged as having a richness to be added to an excellent sculpture catalogue that Haru Sameshima had been documenting for more than thirty years. Nicola Legat, Jane Ussher and Megan Jenkinson conceived of giving the book this context. I was astonished by how Jane turned the everyday of the studio into pictures that have a timelessness to them. They have the atmosphere of old master paintings. And I had huge fun collaborating with Jane in staging still life groups that referenced various sources of inspiration. Along with Linda Tyler’s writings are five essays by gallery directors and university teachers. These each bring their point of view to a lifetime’s work and focus on a particular aspect from it: religion, medals, dividing up the sculptured head, the male figure as subject and the three building projects I’ve been involved with.
Q4: You also note in the closing chapter that the book reengaged you with some earlier work with which you had never been quite satisfied or did not regard as finished. How surprising and enjoyable was that process?
TS: Working on the book involved revisiting my past work, and it tempted me into finishing pieces I had put away. Of the three stages of a project, I enjoy the starting, and then to seeing it through to knowing what it will be like. But when new ideas arrive, I often put away work without the final stage of finishing it off. Rediscovering some incomplete old ideas and finishing them gave me much entertainment.
Q5: Reflecting on an six-decade career must have turned up some moments of reflection. What could your new art school graduate self have not possibly imagined back in 1967?
TS: At the Elam School of Arts at the University of Auckland, the legendary lecturer Jim Allen told my class of beginners that we might stop making art at various times of our lives, and that might be when we had to take up teaching or start a job or, later, at an age when we were giving up work. But it seems to me that half my cohort have practised their art for the whole of their lives. Elam friends have told me that when I was a student I did not seem likely to last as an artist, as I was somewhat lost. But maybe sculpture takes longer to come to terms with, whereas there were painters around me at Elam such as Robin White and Richard Killeen who were already making very desirable works.
Q6: Linda, it’s a long career in sculpture — almost 60 years since Terry graduated from Elam. How would you describe the character of his practice over those decades?
Linda Tyler: Starting out by painting figures like Princess Margaret or his mother onto cut-out wooden planes, he pushed constructions into a third dimension by angling and faceting the bodies. Later on, the sculpting of each work began to combine several elements so that a figure or head was encircled by a gigantic hand which could be turned to reveal an inanimate object. In that way, he introduced a narrative or storytelling element to his work to intrigue the viewer.
Q7: The technical skill and exactitude is accompanied by a quite remarkable conceptual cleverness. Is this his hallmark?
LT: His ideas for sculpture are typically quirky and engaging as well as beautifully executed, and while his works belong to different series, there are certain constants. For example, he communicates his sense of fun by encouraging viewers to move around each sculpture and make (sometimes startling) discoveries for themselves. I think that this derives from his love for Victorian ‘optical amusements’ such as folded pictures and puzzles where you see one image when you look in a certain direction, and something different when you look back the other way.
Q8: This is an awful question I know, but is there a work that impresses or delights you in particular?
LT: The Fisherman and his Soul (2005) which is over two metres tall and in the Northern Club is a particular favourite of mine. It is based on the Oscar Wilde story (1882) which reverses the moral of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid (1837) who sacrifices herself, and through good deeds finally gets a soul. Wilde’s young fisherman has to lose his soul before he can marry the mermaid. Unlike the decorous siren in Copenhagen’s harbour, Terry Stringer’s mermaid is squirming, covering her breasts with one arm and trying to free her legs from their fish tail. As you move around, you discover she is being held by a giant hand, the thumb rising up above her head, and then as you turn further, those fingers become a rising fish. I am impressed at how these three elements manage to tell the story so economically and seductively.
Q9: So many art collectors’ homes have a Stringer, be they one of his large scale works or more modestly sized pieces. Why do you think people are drawn to them?
LT: Unlike other New Zealand sculptors who have explored native flora and fauna, environmental issues or the history of Aotearoa as subjects, Terry has maintained a tight focus on the figure throughout his career. This has made his work very accessible: everyone knows what a human body should look like, and understands what they are looking at. His work pulls viewers in, and the beautiful smooth surfaces invite exploration by touch.
Q10: You spent many, many hours talking with Terry for this book. What struck you above all about his approach to sculpture?
LT: He is endlessly inventive — always thinking about how he can change gear and do something new while keeping within the parameters of the medium of bronze sculpture and not departing from his established signature style. I don’t think he will ever stop making new work.
