Anthills
Samantha Lissette
“Ironically I worked harder on this than any other sculpture. It was incredibly labour intensive.” Samantha Lissette
Title: Anthills
Date: 2018
Medium: Bronze, earth and concrete
Artist Description:
Anthills is a work primarily heralding industry and the merits of hard work. Along side this are ideas around team work and working toward a single unified goal or outcome. Any successful team pulls on the strengths of its individuals. This idea of individuality is reflected in the unique designs sculpted into each Ants armory. The Ants bodies are put together more like armor than exoskeletons, though the two are reflective of each other as an exoskeleton performs the same function as armor. The armor also signifies the uniform; a device used to represent unity, identity and shared purpose.
The leaves impart a soft, organic aspect to the piece and signify the yin or feminine principal, thereby engendering a harmonic balance between themselves and the hard, masculine, robotic nature of the ants.
Seen as a whole, the rhythm of the soft and hard elements combine to reflect the balance of life as it marches ever forward to greater achievements.
Bio:
Samantha Lissette exhibits regularly throughout NZ and internationally. Her work is in public and private collections across New Zealand and China. Samantha is a member of the NZ medal makers group MANZ and exhibits regularly with FIDEM International Medal Makers Congress. She has a degree in philosophy.
Lissette has received public and corporate commissions for her work, most notably for Auckland City Council to Guanghou, China; Auckland Botanic Gardens and Auckland University. Her most recent public commission is the Little Blue Penguin Project at Campbells Bay Beach on Auckland’s North Shore. She works extensively in all scales of the bronze medium, from the monument to the miniature.
Samantha’s work explores the relationship between ‘designed’ elements in the natural world and man’s adaptation of them – merging organic and constructed ideas, exposing an innate link between the two. There is a strong narrative quality to her sculpture, questioning aspects of the human condition; often employing humour or irony, bringing a sense of playfulness and delicacy to a medium traditionally associated with weight and substance.
