Regan Gentry

Regan spent his childhood years living in Hawkes Bay but after leaving school he chose to study at the University of Otago completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2000. His sculptures are heavily influenced by the environment where the artwork will be sited in fact most of his artworks are considered site specific and include an element of local history in their design, the sculptures, if move, would have lesser impact if displayed elsewhere. Having achieved a couple of awards at Fringe New Zealand, the technical excellence award in 2003 for 'ArrRghT' and original concept award in 2004 for Skip It, Regan moved on to take up artist in residence positions, first in Invercargill (2005) then Tylee Cottage in Perth (2007). It was while in Perth that he received another award, the Kids Choice Award at the Sculpture by the Sea for his work 'Recliner Rex'. For the most part Regan's sculptures are language driven in which he makes use of visual puns such as 'All Skip Shaped' where rubbish skip are arranged overlapping and inside each other, or 'Splayed' where 103 shoved are riveted together to form a cone, it seems Regan is excited by shaping words into sculpture followed by the technical challenge of the physical construction of the artwork.