Special branch: Cow sculpture finds a home for Christmas

PIGS in space is a concept we’re familiar with, but a Cow Up A Tree is a new one on me.

Anyone passing through a certain Cork city plaza synonymous with art and culture could be forgiven for thinking they’ve wandered onto the set of the latest Specsaver’s ad.

There, just feet from a traditional Christmas evergreen, is a naked-looking gum-tree, labouring under the weight, not of baubles, but a giant bovine creation.

This quirky installation is the handiwork of Bristol-born, Australian-raised artist John Kelly.

John, who now lives in Cork, explains the background to this work — that in essence, Cow Up A Tree was inspired by the joining of two Australian histories — Australian floods, and the work of one of Australia’s greatest artists, William Dobell, directed by the government during World War II to make papier-mache cows and place them in fields to distract Japanese pilots surveying rural areas for military defence bases.

Drawing on both Dobell’s Cows and the kind of extreme flooding that can leave pretty much anything stranded in trees, John says: “Cow Up A Tree is an art work that relies on history for its inception.

“It combines William Dobell’s WWII papier-mache camouflage cows with the elemental force of Australian floodwaters that often carry animals into surreal positions.”

Mary McCarthy, director of the National Sculpture Factory, said they were delighted Cork City Council is facilitating the unusual installation.

“It will delight and provoke reactions while in the city. It is great to see sculpture of this scale being temporarily positioned in Cork city centre and we hope that this will be the first of further such initiatives.”

John says his father, who was born in Cork, often talked about his birthplace, and that he is delighted to exhibit in both Cork and Melbourne simultaneously “connecting these places and my personal history through art and sculpture”.

Cow Up A Tree, outstanding in its own field, has exhibited in Paris, The Hague and Glastonbury, and will remain in Cork for three months for the titillation of natives and tourists.