Description

This composition started with the rectangular head, whose eyes and mouth were originally knots which, I believe, fell out during its long sea voyage. Picked up on the beach 12 or 14 years ago, it is of special significance for me.

In the early ‘80s I worked at an Elizabethan manor-house that was eventually bought by the artist Sir Sidney Nolan and his wife Lady Mary. Whilst I never met him, Jo and I became very friendly with Mary. Looking at pictures of his Ned Kelly paintings I was struck at how much my rectangular piece of driftwood resembled Kelly’s helmet and constructed my own version of the infamous outlaw. Chatting with Mary one day, I asked if she would mind me putting my sculpture in our shop window with a label: ‘Ned Kelly. By the other Sid.’

Typical of her generous spirit, she wholeheartedly approved, whilst I am very pleased that nobody bought it so that it could become ‘Bird Man’. His slender body offers an inviting arm whose hand makes just the right perch for a bird. Where base meets bough, the lovely curved bird body softens straight lines, whilst at the foot, a small bird looks for scraps. The use of three very different birds is unified by similarly pronounced eye-knots which tie them together in scale. Bird Man’s head can swivel so he can be calling, whistling or just ‘ooohhing’ in admiration of his feathered friends.