Gidon Bing is an Auckland-based sculptor working with traditional processes and materials to produce modern works of fine art.
Bings sculptural practice developed in parallel with an academic career and field work in Archaeology.
Much of his practice has developed from Intergenerational relationships in sculptural ateliers in central Europe and the Middle east providing him with access to classical and Avant Guard movements, ideas and techniques.

His approach to developing his craft emulates methods and relationships of a past era, when skills were attained by watching the masters’ hands.

Expertise with processes and materials requires an understanding of their respective rules and limitations. Studied knowledge of these inherent “laws” is the foundation of much of the innovation in his art practice , allowing him to experiment and ‘break rules’. 

By working cellulose and other fibres into clay he is able to build large works that have texture as well as increased strength and unexpected lightness when fired and finished. By manipulating electrochemical processes he achieves organic deposits/patination’s on various alloys.

When steam bending wood he blends the traditional Japanese discipline of Magewappa with a method pioneered by Thonet in the 1830s, and combines this with craftmanship used by violin makers, adding his own generative adjustment to reveal or enhance the inherent character of the material.

His forms, often universal symbols of Human communion and the natural world are reminiscent of lost civilizations or ones yet to be born and are simultaneously simple yet complex artifice/artefacts. Created to transcend the life and times of their maker as well as the intentions and conditions that first shaped them.

Although reductive and influenced by aesthetic purism, Bings works avoid the sacrifice of tradition at the altar of pure form and are decidedly expressive and human with classical foundations, their simplicity not a call to negate but rather to reveal, form, space, material, allegory.
These ideas go beyond intellectual constructs: for Bing they are embodied experiences underpinned by a cultural and intellectual heritage linked to Europe, the Levant and the great artistic/humanist movements of the 20’s and 30’s.

This authentic kinship with ideological and creative traditions that link purposeful creativity to humanist ideas and the natural world is the foundation of his creative practice.

Gidons work has become highly coveted both locally and internationally with collections featured in Selfridges of London, Milan’s Salone del Mobile, Lane Crawford and other high- profile collections and galleries.