John Radford, 'Tip: VIC (Sculpture One)' (1999), Western Park, Ponsonby, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

Image: Bronwyn Holloway-Smith, Public Art Heritage Aotearoa New Zealand, 2021.

Auckland Council

Western Park, cnr Ponsonby Rd & Hepburn St, Ponsonby, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

John Radford was born in Palmerston North and is a self-taught artist who works in paint, sculpture and installation/multimedia. His art often comments on change, or imagined change, within his environment. 

A noted aesthetic concept Radford has developed is 'transplasticism' where objects are made to appear to change their materiality, for example a car coated in clay.

Since 2009 Radford has been running a indefinitely long project called 'Graft' that comments on the process of "mass suburban demolitions, removals and re-locations caused by urban redevelopment" in a suburb of Victorian Villas. 