Spring Catalogue Exhibition 2009
Gregor Kregar
Reflective Lullaby-Large Wise Gnome, 2008
lost-wax cast and mirror polished 316 stainless steel, 1090 x 500 mm
Exhibited: Melbourne Art Fair 2008
Slovenian born and New Zealand based artist Gregor Kregar is a sculptor whose practice is somewhat unusually, equally divided between the figurative and the abstract. Both sides are represented in the Gow Langsford Gallery 2009 Spring Catalogue exhibition, with Reflective Lullaby-Large Wise Gnome (2008) weighing in for the figurative. In the tradition of Jeff Koons, Kregar often works with familiar objects such as piggy banks and garden gnomes. Yet these are transformed through his use of materials, inverse size proportions, and often, through the use of the replica. Works such as The Pygg Bank Project, (2005-2006) for example, are composed of a miniature band of figures (in this case 140 piggy banks) which are disconcerting in their multiplicity and the combined force of their many small gazes.
Reflective Lullaby-Large Wise Gnome is a singular figure but has an uncanny presence due to its unexpectedly large size, and stainless steel surface. Standing, with hands on hips, the gnome is a seeming cross-breed of garden gnome and folkloric forest-dweller. The gnome is a prominent figure within Kregar's oeuvre, generally exemplifying the artist's interest in the everyday, even the kitsch. More specifically however, the gnome has diverse associations, ranging ancient myth, to the history of ceramics and craft, to Disney. The use of stainless steel as material lends the gnome a solid and substantial presence, contrary to the fragile nature of the every-day, garden variety garden gnome. The silvery, ultra-reflective surface is like a precious metal and the gnome reflects the world around him, occupying a space somewhere between the comical, jovial, and the magical. WW
