Banner I

Marte Szirmay was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1946. She arrived in New Zealand in 1957 and graduated with a Diploma of Fine Arts (Hons) from the University of Auckland, School of Fine Arts in 1968. Marte also gained her Diploma of Teaching from the Auckland College of Education in 1969. Since 1968 Marte has participated regularly in solo and group exhibitions throughout New Zealand and internationally. Her work continues to be commissioned and can be found in many public and private collections worldwide. She has taught art in secondary schools and university extension programmes since 1970, and is currently Principal Lecturer, School of Visual Arts, MIT, Auckland. Szirmay's sculptures vary considerably in size. She has created architectural sculpture, sculpture for city squares, wall reliefs and free-standing objects that range from person size to hand size. The rhythmic curvature of surfaces, which are a usual feature of her work, suggest the slow movement of organic growth or the surge of waves, reflective of the dynamic interrelationship of all living things. Marte Szirmay employs two basic methods in creating her works. She uses the lost-wax casting technique for small pieces and welded sheet metal for most of the larger public commissions. The sculpture and its cast operate on a yin-yang basis, each being the inside out image of the other. Beginning with her cast aluminium group in 1971, Szirmay has worked in series. Each work is a unique realisation of the conception that informs the whole. A series ends when the artist realises that she has begun to explore another direction, with the new series growing organically from the old.