Melissa Macleod

Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1973

the slow amputation of her protective arm

  • 2018-2019
  • Ply, steel, strapping, roots from drowning pine trees along the Avon Heathcote Estuary (New Brighton)
  • Purchased 2020
  • 3000 x 2200 x 400mm
  • 2021/007

Tags: circles (plane figures), grids (layout features), monochrome, sieves

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When the February 2011 earthquake struck Ōtautahi Christchurch it changed the structure of the land, flooding the roots of the pine trees along the New Brighton shore with fatal doses of salt water. Melissa Macleod collected the roots of these slowly drowning trees, and after cleaning them and applying a beeswax coating, she stretched them taut over circular frames in diminishing dimensions. Installed on top of each other like oversized garden sieves, each pattern intensifies and complicates the next, until they resemble arteries, a network of waterways or a disrupted city grid.

(Die Cuts and Derivations, 11 March – 2 July 2023)

Exhibition History

Peter Robinson Die Cuts and Derivations 2015. Cut wool felt. Private collection. Image courtesy of the artist and Coastal Signs
Die Cuts and Derivations
Ayesha Green All of my Lovers are Immigrants (Smooth my Pillow) (detail) 2020. Acrylic on canvas. Private collection
Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania
Image: uploads/2023_07/2021_007_view_a.jpg
Image: uploads/2023_07/2021_007_view_b.jpg
Image: uploads/2023_07/2021_007_view_c.jpg
other labels about this work

  • Te Wheke: Pathways across Oceania, 30 May 2020 – 3 July 2022

    the slow amputation of her protective arm registers an environmental impact that is hidden from view. When earthquakes struck Ōtautahi / Christchurch in 2010/11, they changed the structure of the land, flooding the roots of the pine trees along the New Brighton shore with fatal doses of salt water. Weaving together the roots of these slowly drowning trees, cleaned and tenderly coated in beeswax, Melissa Macleod transforms them into practical objects. Reminiscent of the sieves used by gardeners when preparing soil for planting, they call to mind all that has slipped away and all that still remains, reminding us of the work that is yet to be done.