What is the egg all about?

OK so the giant box marked “Fragile Egg” that was sitting at reception was raising lots of questions in the Welly office so here is the broadcast explanation:

I was approached (along with a bunch of other artists) late last year by Starship Hospital and asked if I would decorate a giant fibreglass egg which would be auctioned off to raise money for the hospital. At Easter they are going to be put on public display up and down the country to drum up some media hype.

I agreed and just after Christmas my egg was delivered to Insight where the boys and I immediately started playing dress-ups

Then I took it home and of course being me, I just had to photograph it…


 
before I started to paint it…

And so here is a sneak peek at the finished thing



If you want the full rational (they asked us to supply one) here it is:

Stranded in Paradise
I interpreted the egg as a symbol of the start of a life – full of promise. Taking that as a start point, I turned my thoughts to my own birth and childhood growing up in Palmerston North – a small town in a small and isolated country during the 70s. During my teenage years I felt our isolation as a double edged sword – feeling the urge to travel and experience the world but trapped in the relative paradise of NZ.

In the design I am represented by a fantail (common in Palmerston North) yearning to take flight and explore the world (represented by the compass rose) but being held back by the isolation and conservatism of 70s life in NZ (the tendrils of paisley wrapping themselves around the bird). The title is a reference to the book of the same name released in 1988, the title of which struck a chord with me as a youth.