The Zeal Steel founder and managing director’s latest artwork is a hedgehog - not the ones that hang out in the garden; the tank-stopping kind.
"When you try to drive a tank over it, it gets tangled up in the tracks and peels the tracks off.
"So they’re not a weapon of war, they’re a defence mechanism."
And because there are thousands of them dotted about Ukraine at the moment to help keep Russian tanks at bay, he has used the shape to create an artwork that pays tribute to the people of Ukraine.
He has added text to the sides.
On one side it says "Glory to Ukraine", and on another it says "Liberty is not solved for all the gold in the world".
He said the latter was a catchphrase from the Croatian War of Independence in the early 1990s.
"It’s got quite symbolic meaning. When you look very deeply at it, you realise that it’s more than just a hedgehog.
"At different angles, it also looks like a cross. It has a message, and like a hedgehog, it’s got some sharp points to it."
"When you start to get an understanding of what’s really going on in the world, you realise this is bigger than what a lot of people think.
"And of course, many people are suffering as a result.
"I’ve done this because I don’t like watching people suffer."
He started the sculpture on "a stinking hot day in January", and built it out of pieces of scrap metal in his yard with the aim of finishing it by February 24 - the anniversary of the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Now that it was finished, it would be listed on Trade Me Cool Auctions and sold to raise funds for the Red Cross in Ukraine, he said.
Until then, it would be on public display in Vogel St.
