Old car a gateway to a world of possibilities

The first Glen Hayward I encountered was years ago and it was at the then Norsewear Art Awards in Hawke’s Bay. They sadly no longer exist.

The story was – and it could have been one of those tall tales in art – that at first glance someone thought an old random cardboard banana box was just part of the packaging of one of the artworks that had been left accidentally in the judges’ viewing room. But when picking it up to move the supposed offending wrapping, it was revealed it was indeed a careful wooden replica.

This is Hayward then, painstakingly, masterfully working wood to elevate an everyday common object and raise it to the level of art.

Years later, and it must be more than a decade since that Norsewear show, and Hayward’s scope and scale has widened.

This new work, Dendrochronology ,at the Sarjeant Gallery in Whanganui, running until December 2, is his largest piece yet.

It is one piece set up in the back-end room of the gallery – a single-object installation, although with all its interior bits and pieces it feels as if it is a small recreated world.

In a collective memory shared by nearly everyone growing up in New Zealand, it is instantly recognised as a Toyota Corolla set up on blocks, as if in a deserted paddock.

Small fact file: the Corolla model was produced for 50 years, 44.1 million sold in more than 150 countries and it was consistently a New Zealand top seller.

And it is a memory that Hayward is trying to recreate – him playing in the car as a child.