Bask in the Glow

Artist Bobbie Gray credits a minor dishwasher disaster with inspiring her particular form of
botanical sculpture.

When the former Tauranga resident discovered the melted remnants of her plastic eco cups
in the dishwasher tray one morning, regret rapidly turned to fascination. Close examination
revealed the misshapen drinking vessels looked a little like flowers.

Fast forward four years and Bobbie is back in her hometown to finish Kōwhai Grove, a nine
month public art project involving the creation of almost 3000 illuminated flowers. Each blossom
has been handmade using six different carved, heated, painted, unwanted plastic bottles, then
fitted with a LED device and suspended from the ceiling of Tauranga’s Grey Street Arcade.

About 16,000 bottles have been transformed with the help of local schoolchildren and others attending Bobbie’s kōwhai-making workshops. Every offcut has been saved for reuse or recycling, while the plastic vessels have been scavenged by workshop participants, a local café and Tauranga’s Envirohub, as well as the artist’s friends and family. “I literally pick up bottles from the gutter,”
Bobbie says.‍

Kōwhai Grove is her fourth floral installation utilising this medium, which is designed to divert waste from landfill while crafting beauty and raising environmental awareness. “Personally, I’m really conscious of being an artist, a maker, and putting more things into the world when there are already so many things.

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“I try to have the most sustainable practice possible. I don’t feel good about buying new materials.
I reuse whatever I can, so the base of a painting might be plywood out of my old camper. It’s so
much more inspiring than going to a shop and buying more stuff.”

Art has fascinated the Auckland resident since her Matua Primary School days, right through Ōtūmoetai Intermediate and Ōtūmoetai College. Despite stellar arts grades, the teenager was dissuaded from the obvious career choice and diverted into vet nursing. Even then, she sold paintings and hand stencilled vinyl records on the side.

Eventually, in the wake of an overseas superyacht stint, Bobbie succumbed to the inevitable and returned home to complete a fine arts degree at Whitecliffe College. “I was 30 when I started art school. It was such a big thing to start afresh, when a lot of my friends were very well established
in their careers,” she says. “It was really hard; the deadlines, juggling multiple projects at once, having to work and put aside time for study. But it was the right thing to do, going with a bit
of life experience.”

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Whitecliffe was also where she tackled — and became fascinated by — her first serious sustainable art project. Having scoured Auckland streets for commonly discarded items, she found herself with
a pile of deflated footballs from the city’s inorganic waste collections. The flattened balls were unpicked then sewn back together to create a sculpture dubbed The Dirty Side of Football. Her
‍Plastic Soup project saw discarded items strung into a net handwoven from plastic bags.

These days, Bobbie’s art spans photography, painting and digital mediums as well as sculptural pieces. Her installations have appeared in multiple art and light festivals across Auckland, as well
as on city streets in Whakatāne and Tauranga. She has worked in France, exhibited in Iran and England, and her video installation, Digital Garden, was projected onto a World Heritage site in Tunisia. Another plastic bottle artwork, Wisteria Lane, featured in Tauranga’s After Dark Urban
Light Festival in 2022.‍

Kōwhai Grove, commissioned by Tauranga City Council, is her first semi-permanent work and
she chose the bloom largely for its widespread familiarity. “Everyone recognises the kōwhai flower and associates it with being a Kiwi. It’s New Zealand’s unofficial national flower.”

Once the last plastic yellow blossom has been hung, she is bound for Holland to live and work with her partner. “I have a couple of projects lined up there, one in Poland, one maybe in Amsterdam.
I also want to take a break and get reinspired. There are amazing botanical gardens in Amsterdam, which is where I imagine I’ll be spending a lot of time.”

She laughs. Yes, it’s possible there will be plastic tulips in her future.‍

bobbiegray.com @bobbiegrayartist

Story by Sue Hoffart

Cover photograph by Kendra Eden Photography

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