PORTRAIT of an artist
When sculptor Gidon Bing steps out of his studio beneath his home in Auckland’s St Heliers, he looks out over the garden he played in as a boy.
The studio – now fitted out with light poplar plywood modular cabinetry, Gidon’s own handiwork – was once his grandmother’s atelier. “She used to work down here making hats and gloves, leather mostly, and my grandfather practised architecture in there [an adjoining conservatory overlooking the garden].”
Gidon calls himself a “sculptor and part-time designer”, but even that doesn’t really convey the full range of his skills. He sculpts in wood and metal; uses digital and traditional technology to fashion utilitarian ceramic pieces that are both classical yet utterly modern; he produces prints; and he’s an interior designer in demand. He’s currently working on the interior design of a furniture store in Ponsonby, and a soon-to-be-opened Parisian neo-bistro called Celeste – a re-imagining of approachable Parisian dining with a utilitarian modernist aesthetic – on K Road.
