These two projects were commissioned by our local community in Dromina, near where our studio is located. Their simple bold graphic images lend some light-hearted humour to the village. Both pieces are made from painted cut-out galvanised steel.

“Fowl Play” features a group of oversized hens caught in a moment in time. The cut-out shapes within the hens’ bodies contain different scenarios; one hen has caught a worm, the hen’s call of “cluck, cluck, cluck” forms the feathers on another hen, while a further one proclaims that there will be “eggs for breakfast”. There are bug and flower cut-outs on other hens suggest what they might have been eating. The hens appear to be spooked and we can see a fox and a mink hidden in the last two hens. “Beware of the fox in hen’s clothing”. The treatment of the birds is quirky and playful and is geared towards the younger audience that pass by on their way to the nearby playschool.

Continuing along the same vein is “Watching the World Go By” artwork on the exterior wall of one of the village farms. A farmer along with a menagerie of farmyard animals are watching as the world passes them by on the main street. The cat is digesting a fish, while a pig and a dog are made up mostly of the negative space of the cut-out but this doesn’t seem to dampen their spirits. The piece is to remember the rural roots of the area and of a time when the world was moving at a much slower pace.