Packing a punch

By Simon Young, November 29, 2006 @ 2 am

The screens, punched with a pattern of 19,000 holes, will be unveiled in February 2007 when the Dowse Gallery reopens. Photograph by Ian Robertson

An unusual collaboration between an art gallery, an architect, an artist and a fire truck manufacturer.

A meeting of minds: architect Nick Mouat, Kazuya Morimoto and Martin Simpson of Fraser Engineering, and artist Simon Morris examine one of the 60 screens destined for the gallery. Photograph by Ian Robertson

Limitations are a powerful motivation for creative ideas, says Wellington abstract artist Simon Morris. He’s proven it with a groundbreaking architectural artwork for the refurbished Dowse Gallery in Lower Hutt.

Dowse director Tim Walker says the budget didn’t stretch to air conditioning for the upstairs part of the gallery, so the gallery needed an alternative way to keep the area cool. With Athfield Architects the gallery developed a plan for a large metal screen perforated by holes. But what holes to punch? Instead of a logo or words, the Dowse wanted something that would itself be a work of art.

So began an unusual collaboration between the gallery, the architects, the artist and fire truck manufacturer Fraser Engineering. Architects and engineers are used to working together but Athfield’s Nick Mouat says this is a different, closer kind of collaboration. “Generally there’s some art input to a building, but it’s applied at the end,” he says. “This is the first time the artist’s input has been so integrated with what we’re doing and what Fraser engineering as a metalworker is doing.” The physical manufacturing process also influenced the artwork, he says.

“In some ways, the more constraints there were, the more Simon relished it,” says Walker. “That’s very unusual for an artist!” There’s been plenty of debate, says Morris, “but that’s part of the process that everyone’s bought into. It’s been really enjoyable and rewarding so far.”