Hamish Jones presents A Room Full Of Toys. Larger than life-size, his toys enter an adult world and explore the games grown-ups play. As large-scale toys, the works generate conversations surrounding consumer culture, mass-production and capitalist society. They are objects to be bought, collected and consumed.
Black Sheep, White Sheep talks of the manufacturing of New Zealand products and culture. The hand-carved, heavy, black Rimu sheep stands alongside his copy - shiny, pristine and glowing white. Issues surrounding genetic engineering and cloning are prevalent, conversations about New Zealand’s rural commodities are also alluded to.
Fashion, fun and the collectable nature of mass-produced toys are explored in Block Colour (Green, Blue, Red). Cut from the same mould, each work is changed slightly (but is essentially the same). Why take one when you can collect them all? A pun on the fashion term ‘block colour’, the figures wear the same colours you find in childrens’ Duplo blocks.
Ironically a tree made from sustainable pine stands in the work Deconstruction/Reconstruction. The work reminds the viewer of the commodity value of wood and the decline of the world’s natural resources, yet also celebrates its natural beauty.
Standing on display as if part of a museum collection, Jones’ dinosaurs are contemporary fossils, bringing to light the commodification of nature. Today fossils are sold, collected, and consumed, found in gift shops alongside dinosaur puzzles and souvenir tea towels.
A Room Full Of Toys shows the everyday and familiar in a new light, taking toys from the child’s bedroom into a contemporary adult world.
Hamish Jones lives in Dunedin. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Otago School of Art. His works have been in a number of shows in public galleries including The Blue Oyster. Earlier this year his work was exhibited in Sculpture In Central Otago at Rippon Vinyard, Wanaka. Jones is represented by Gallery 33 in Wanaka.
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