By AIDAN KNIGHT

 

THE Mirboo North & District Community Bank has recently acquired a sculpture from local artist and town identity Peter Cook, in wake of the Gippsland Sculpture Exhibition 2025.

The sculpture, a giant-sized dandelion, is made from a 10 pin bowling ball, electric fence cable, a car axle, and a length of steel.

The Gippsland Sculpture Exhibition (GSE) was founded in 2017 by nationally celebrated artist Nicole Allen, who had relocated to Yinnar South from the Mornington Peninsula, after “literally throwing a dart at a map and going where it landed”.

The GSE is a biennial event that takes the form of a festival more than a conventional exhibition. It sees more than 130 sculptures from some of Australia’s most talented creators put on display for a seven week period in the centre of the town, celebrating both the great art and the community of the area and boosting the economy of the small town.

The fifth iteration of the GSE took place from March 9 to April 25, and saw disciplinaries utilising ceramics, steel, wood, stone, and even bronze, into one-off pieces available to the public for the seven-week window.

Nicole’s vision was to transform a town into a place of “sculpture culture” for a period of time, while also increasing tourism within the area, as it attracts the best and brightest in interior and exterior design each year it’s held.

Peter’s sculpture scored second place in the people’s choice award, and as a result was acquired by the Community Bank to be made a permanent fixture in the township of Yinnar.

Peter is known throughout the Latrobe Valley for his career as a magician, before he dabbled in sculpture. Before even that, he was an industrial electrician, spending much of his life on oil rigs, where he sourced much of his knowledge and ability of metalwork that he utilises in many of his sculptures today.

Tony Hanning, another local artist, who has ran many galleries, worked across the United Kingdom and America, and is now a judge for the GSE.

Hanning spoke on the innovative nature of Peter Cook’s works, telling the Express, “you never know what to expect from him. I often check in with him on these big projects he undertakes (for the exhibition) at various stages of his process, and you wonder how on earth he’s going to pull off these ideas”.

Cook has no lack of ideas in the creative space, as Hanning confirms he spends the entire two year period between each exhibition chipping away at his entry, often having formulated the next concept before the current project is even complete.

“It’s been discussed what his next entry will be, something more interactive than what I’ve seen pulled off before – it will be a real doozy in the sculpture world if it works.”

Given his trades background, Cook has a knack for making his works more than just a fixed piece of metal – his dandelion piece having the capacity to swivel in the wind on the car axle at it’s base, and lighting up at the head of the artwork, as a sort of abstract street light.

It currently resides directly across from the Yinnar Post Office, but will be given a more permanent location within the town, agreed upon by Cook and the Community Bank, in order to free up space for further GSE pieces.

Once permanently fixed, it will join a dozen or so existing sculptures in the main drag of Yinnar, as the GSE selects one piece each year to install as a town display, making a unique ‘Walk of Fame’ of what is widely regarded as the Gippsland Art Capital.

Five thousand votes were cast in the people’s choice award, and more than 30,000 people attended the GSE this year.