“Anything that reminds us that we are a part of Nature seems beautiful and essential to me”. This quote comes at the end of the brief four-minute video – and I think we can say that Anna has been more than successful in this endeavour.
ABC Arts – Anna-Wili Highfield’s Amazing Animal Sculptures | Art Works – Bing video – How she has created something of the essentialness of the kangaroo, that quiet watchfulness, out of nothing more than strips of paper, is pure genius. Somehow, she combines the abstract with the whole, both breaking down and re-assembling simultaneously, the wonderful creature that is the kangaroo.
The video also contains footage of some marvellous Brolgas under construction and I look forward to hearing the music being composed to accompany them.
The kangaroo sculptures may appear quiet and still, but many of her other pieces are very dynamic. Her Blue Wrens are tiny balls of whirling, furious energy, every ounce of their being concentrated in the moment and the pinpoint of their intense black eyes. This is exactly how they are: self-possessed little dervishes of the undergrowth, rushing about on their own, urgent business!
Wili Highfield is also aware of the great complexity of the human-Nature relationship and that there is more to it than a realisation that we are ‘a part’ of it: we are also ‘apart’. As her website says: “Her aim is to engineer a moment of contact with Nature in a way that emphasises both the startling differences and similarities of human and animal forms and consciousness.” http://www.annawilihighfield.com/about .
