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Bill Culbert - Seven Seas
Bill Culbert’s whimsical Seven Seas on the East wall of the winery cellars is based on his own drawings of items from his collection of antique French corkscrews and brings together two significant elements of his oeuvre – the use of ‘found art’ as evidenced in his photography, and experimentation with light and colour, culminating in his recent abstract neon sculptures.
As British curator Andrea Shlieker has written, 'Culbert is best known for making hybrids of ordinary domestic objects - wine glass, stool, jug or table, thus forming illuminating (in both senses of the word) and surreal fusions... Yet these bricolages always have a lightness of touch, as well as a sense of humour and playful serendipity.'
Bill designed the work specifically for the cellars and personally supervised its installation.
Bill Culbert was born in Port Chalmers in 1935 and studied at Canterbury University School of Art and Auckland Training College before graduate study at the Royal College of Art in London, where he has been based since the late 1950s. Dividing his time between the UK, France, New Zealand and commissions elsewhere, Culbert has exhibited regularly throughout his career. His work has been acquired by many public collections, most notably in Britain and New Zealand. For the last thirty years, Bill Culbert has been working with light, using it to transform objects and to create new ones. His large neon sculptures feature in – and on – numerous buildings and public spaces, notably in New Zealand, Britain and Australia.
