Bell Gully’s Sculptural Installation "Chorus"
By Crystal Chain Gang
Crystal Chain Gang is a fine art glass collective, based in the Wairarapa, led by artists, Jim Dennison and Leanne Williams. Bell Gully’s magnificent sculptural installation is entitled Chorus and comprises eleven chandeliers that each represent species of native New Zealand birds, all of which have flown (or walked) outside the windows where you are now standing.
Crystal Chain Gang have envisaged this collection of birds gathered across time, combining extant and extinct birds, to sing the dawn chorus together. The dawn chorus was quotidian, pre-colonisation, but is now something rarely experienced within cities. Early accounts describe the chorus as deafening. As Joseph Banks said in 1770:
“This Morn I was awaked by the singing of the birds ashore, from whence we were distant not a quarter of a mile; the numbers of them were certainly very great, who seemed to strain their throats with emulation, perhaps their voices were certainly the most melodious wild music I have ever heard, almost imitating small bells, but with the most tuneable Silver sound imaginable…”
Crystal Chain Gang and Bell Gully have brought these birds back into the CBD. Each chandelier is a standalone bird, representing Tui, Kereru (woodpigeon), Hihi (Stitchbird), Korimako (bellbird), Ruru (laughing owl), Kakapo, Kaka, Piwakawaka (fantail), Titipounamu (rifleman), Pipiwharauroa (shining cuckoo), and Riroriro (grey warbler).
Scale, colour palette and anatomy of the birds have informed the creation of each chandelier; the Kereru is large, the Piwakawaka, small. Each chandelier has an exquisite blown-glass egg form at the top, suggesting the bird’s birth. At the bottom, beneath the array of glass feathers, many of the chandeliers display blown-glass, pointed, drop elements that reference beak forms.
Crystal Chain Gang have created an interactive installation for Bell Gully that comes alive as viewers move around and underneath the sculptures. Every time you view this magnificent artwork, you will be provided with a fresh angle of colour palette and scintillating light through the fragile glass feathers, ultimately reminding us of the preciousness of our native fauna.
Crystal Chain Gang have envisaged this collection of birds gathered across time, combining extant and extinct birds, to sing the dawn chorus together.
“This Morn I was awaked by the singing of the birds ashore, from whence we were distant not a quarter of a mile; the numbers of them were certainly very great, who seemed to strain their throats with emulation, perhaps their voices were certainly the most melodious wild music I have ever heard, almost imitating small bells, but with the most tuneable Silver sound imaginable…”
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Bell Gully’s Sculptural Installation "Chorus"
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Crystal Chain Gang
About the
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Chandeliers and Fine Glass hand crafted in Martinborough, New Zealand.
We are Martinborough glass artists Jim Dennison and Leanne Williams. We call ourselves the Crystal Chain Gang because we work with a transformative and beautiful material known as lead crystal and because our approach to glassmaking so often requires damn hard graft.
For more than a decade, we’ve been making objects, we hope, will make onlookers feel, think and appreciate the world in a different way. Our critics say our work is part art, part design and part craft. We say it’s simply our imaginative take on the world. It’s our goal to make objects that are at the same time exotic and local, that speak of today and times past and that take you on a journey by reinventing what you expect to see and experience through the medium of glass.
We’ve won awards and fellowships for our work. We’ve had our work selected for major glass exhibitions at home and overseas. You’ll find Crystal Chain Gang in the Ebeltoft Museum in Denmark, the Museum of Glass in the United States and in New Zealand’s own Te Papa Tongarewa. We’re proud to have work in these places and it’s our ambition to showcase what we do further afield and to keep growing the Crystal Chain Gang’s body of work. Over the past 12 years we have focussed our attention on making chandeliers. These chandeliers have found themselves in both commercial and domestic settings, throughout New Zealand and Australia. We are proud to be 100% New Zealand made, and equality proud of our relationships with our clients as we design and make their chandeliers specific for their environment. We are driven to making glass treasures that are jewels and remain truly unique objects within our clients lives for years to come.
We welcome all enquiries, whether big or small, we make bespoke jewels for you. Welcome aboard.
The Gang,
Leanne Williams and Jim Dennison
- Year founded2018
- ArchiPro Member since2021
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