This intimate bronze maquette by Mornington Peninsula artist John Baird captures four decades of looking, making and refining in a sculpture that feels both assured and quietly playful. A finalist in the 2025 McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery Maquette: Sculpture Award for his bronze Engineered Still Life, Baird brings to this work the same considered sense of composition that defines his paintings - his characteristic intimate picture plane here unfolding into three dimensions and gently occupying space with quiet confidence.

Working within the award’s 50cm scale, Baird embraces the pleasure of restraint. The composition is distilled yet lively: botanical forms poised like a small theatre of leaves and stems, at once structured and slightly whimsical. Cast in bronze, the sculpture carries a sense of permanence, yet it retains an intimacy that invites close viewing. Light moves softly across its patina, revealing nuance and warmth. For collectors, this maquette represents not only the convergence of Baird’s modernist influences and long fascination with constructed space, but also a moment of joy - an artist delighting in form, balance and the simple, enduring beauty of a still life reimagined.

John BAIRD (1954 - )
'Engineered Still Life' 2022
bronze sculpture
Image Size: 41 x 38 cm
Dimensions: 41 x 38 x 38 cm
Comes with a Letter of Provenance

This work was a finalist in the 2025 McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery Maquette: Sculpture Award

Condition: Excellent

(c) The Artist or Assignee