Judy Darragh - Bottle Run

1200 red-tipped bottles trail down the hill at Brick Bay, forming a spectacular abstract painting in the landscape. In this temporary artist project titled Bottle Run, Judy Darragh reclaims recycled Brick Bay wine bottles and ‘plants’ them back into the ground which produced the wine.

The installation is on display from now until the end of March at Brick Bay Sculpture Trail, the outdoor gallery near Matakana north of Auckland.

The wine bottle has often been referenced throughout the history of art, from the work of cubists and Flemish still life painters to Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp. In Bottle Run Darragh contributes ideas of growth, accumulation and replenishment with her investigation into wine.

Visually stunning, Bottle Run echoes the undulating landscape contours and vineyard rows, gentling travelling across the green pasture. Considering form, repetition and colour, the work is a continuation of Darragh’s recent explorations into ideas surrounding blooms and bottles. Skins (2009) consisted of wine bottle corks dipped in paint, then secured to float across a wall like a cloud of cylindrical paintings. Laser Bloom (1999) was made from masses of fluorescent acrylic forms which glowed like radiated algae, an organic bloom, and expanded across the gallery space. Bottle Run builds upon these installations.

Brick Bay Sculpture Trail exhibits and sells sculpture by established and emerging New Zealand artists. Every summer the Brick Bay Sculpture Trust sponsors an artist to create a temporary art work, one which broadens an understanding of sculpture. Renowned artist Judy Darragh was selected to respond to the environment at Brick Bay and her Bottle Run delightfully embodies the concept of art and wine entwined.

Judy Darragh’s installation Bottle Run is on from now until the end of March at Brick Bay Sculpture Trail, just 50 minutes north of Auckland.