Lost World: T-Rex, Lost World: Brachiosaurus, Lost World: Stegosaurus, and Lost World: Triceratops by Gregor Kregar for SCAPE Public Art Season 2017

Gregor Kregar Lost World: T-Rex, Lost World: Brachiosaurus, Lost World: Stegosaurus, and Lost World: Triceratops 2015. Image courtesy of the artist and Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland. Photo by Heather Milne.

The title of this expanded series of works, spanning bronze, lead crystal and stainless steel, referenced Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 novel, The Lost World, a book that helped to popularise dinosaurs. These long-extinct creatures hold a prominent place in popular culture via advertising, movies, toys, gaming and museum displays. They are rife in the imaginations of children, but have also been used within corporate and political cultures to symbolize dominance, power and longevity. Auckland-based Kregar has long been captivated by how subtle changes in scale, form and materiality can influence our understanding of a sculptural object. Kregar is also interested in the systems of production and distribution at play in our material world, and the political and economic infrastructures that drive them. Here small plastic toy dinosaurs were enlarged and cast in bronze, a medium that reeks of both permanence and valuable status.