Martin Basher is a New Zealand/USA artist now based in Wellington / Te Whanganui-a-Tara, who has presented the city with vibrant, gigantic seven-metre-tall bouquets of flowers. Martin is the recipient of the tenth The Colin Post 4 Plinths Project Trust commission, and Big Flowers for a Wild City was unveiled in March 2026 on the plinths bordering the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa forecourt by the Trust’s patron, Dame Patsy Reddy.
For each of the plinths, Martin has designed a flowering abstract bouquet of candy-coloured flowers arranged in a vase. Their genesis came post-COVID, when Martin realised he needed to make something pure and beautiful. Martin says:
“The low-relief sculptures with their high gloss, pearlescent and day-glow pigments rise up against the thrumming city backdrop. Constructed of steel and wood, the work is a thrilling pop of colour against the muted hues of Te Papa and its surrounding buildings. Their height vies with the scale of the surrounding architecture, punching out against the skyline and bounding the entrance to Te Papa with a scale and ambition befitting the setting.”
There is also a darker side to the work, with the artificial flowers — non-perishable and rendered in alien colours — acting as a gesture towards the disorder of climate change. However, Martin says:
“I ultimately want them to be received as lasting tokens of affection. Their generosity, embodied in their vibrancy and their exuberance, should be seen as a tribute to both the city of Wellington and to the power of art itself.”
Artist
Martin Basher is a graduate of New York’s Columbia University MFA program. Basher has exhibited widely internationally. Though primarily a painter, he has made a number of public sculptures, including a major commission for The Public Art Fund, New York’s leading presenter of public art.
He has been the recipient of a number of prestigious residencies including: The La Brea Residency in Los Angeles, the McCahon Residency in Auckland, New Zealand, the AAI Residency in New York, and the Susan Goodman Residency in Berlin. His work features in numerous public and private collections in the United States and New Zealand.