Acquiesce by Anton Parsons for SCAPE Public Art Season 2017

Anton Parsons Acquiesce 2017. Image courtesy of artist and Jonathan Smart Gallery, Christchurch. Photo by Heather Milne.

Two impressive sculptures forged from metal by Auckland-based artist Anton Parsons, Myopia and Acquiesce, were in residence at the Christ’s College Quadrangle. Acquiesce, like Myopia, also featured patterning in braille, but the meaning of the text was more ambiguous. It could be a highly sophisticated code or pure decoration, or something in-between. The form was an abbreviated version of the seam of a tennis ball, a linear shape that Parsons has been working with since 2006. This seam was a clever geometrical solution to form a robust 3D sphere from a 2D surface. Here the form had less a utilitarian role, more a metaphorical one. The form had no beginning or end; it was endless. The application of braille to a 3D four-sided profile further challenged a simple translation, and offered the viewer scope for interpretation.