Connells Bay sculpture park
Connells Bay Sculpture Park on Waiheke Island offer visitors a special experience to view large outdoor contemporary sculpture by some of New Zealand’s best known sculptors.
Connells Bay Sculpture Park is a 60 acre coastal property on Waiheke Island. The vision of the owners, John and Jo Gow, has been to unite art and nature by planting sweeps of native trees and creating special places for commissioned site-specific and purchased New Zealand sculpture.
Their property is open for guided walks on a prior appointment basis between October and April each year. Visitors also have the opportunity to stay in their guest cottage retreat.
Prior to opening Connells Bay to the public, John spent 20 years arranging funding for a number of major musicals around the world including Cats, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon. John and Jo’s interest in the arts also includes a significant collection of New Zealand paintings.
The Sculpture Park currently contains 20 works in differing scale and media and each of the commissioned sculptures tells a story about its existence.
Phil Price has installed a large kinetic work titled ‘Dancer’ which links back to John’s involvement in theatre; Cathryn Monro’s ‘Rise’ has direct reference to the Mayan temples where both the artist and the owners had travelled; Fatu Feu’u’s large carving is reminiscent of an Easter Island head, yet more than any other sculptures in the park, he belongs, for his roots go deep into the earth. He is ‘Guardian of the Planting’ bringer of peace and stern protector of the 15,000 planted native trees.
The walk leads on to one of the many rustic macrocarpa seats where you can enjoy a vista looking out towards the Coromandel Peninsular.
Neil Dawson’s eight meter sculpture ‘Other Peoples’ Houses’ draws reference to the private cluster of colonial cottages on the foreshore at Connells Bay; once a sea-access trading post with a shop, dairy, post office and fuel depot for 80 years from the late 1800s.
Further on, Chris Booth’s ‘Slip’ celebrates the healing of the land following several large landslides.
Other New Zealand sculptors represented at Connells Bay include Paul Dibble, Kon Dimopoulos, Christine Hellyar, Bob Stewart, Jeff Thomson and Richard Thompson. There are many others and new sculptures are being added each year.
John and Jo Gow are currently developing plans to fund sculptors to make works for sale at Connells Bay Sculpture Park.
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