Canterbury builder galloping into new career as an artist

Like many people during the Covid lockdowns, Canterbury builder Gawie Bosman took up a new hobby.

Now his hobby is becoming his full-time job.

Three days a week, Bosman is a builder in Christchurch. The rest of his time he spends at home in Southbridge, toiling away on metal sculptures in his shed.

"It started in the first lockdown and I made a woman out of little scrappy bits.

"When that sold I thought: 'Wait a minute this might become a hobby that makes a bit of money’," Bosman said.

His latest creation is by far his biggest.

He calls it Metallicus - a full-size horse coated half in steel and half in copper, sculpted to appear as if it is galloping.

Metallicus is on display at the Christchurch Arts Centre until Sunday as part of the sculpture festival and is listed for sale at $34,500.

"The steel side is made from oil drums and the copper is hot water cylinders I collect from plumbers."

Bosman spent about four months building the horse. He created the steel underframe and mocked up the skin using building paper before finally welding on the exterior.

"I wrote down 260 (hours) but I’m sure a few slipped through," Bosman said.

The inspiration for Metallicus was right on Bosman’s doorstep.

"My partner (Michelle) re-homes ex-harness racing horses.

"Once they’re rejects, they usually get turned into dog food, but she and her daughter saddle break them and find them new homes so there’s always horses around.”

Metallicus is modelled after one of the horses on the farm.

"It is modelled off a real horse - an old, calm, dead quiet horse that I measured everything off. I felt like a tailor.

"You kind of have to if you want to get the proportions right, otherwise you might get a child saying that’s a beautiful camel."

Bosman has made horse heads before but never anything the size of Metallicus.

Since he began sculpting, Bosman has made a range of works including female torsos, a submarine, a motorbike, horseshoe cubes, and a blue cod trophy for a fishing competition in the Chatham Islands.

Originally from Kimberley, South Africa, he moved to Southbridge for a better life almost 10 years ago.

"There was not a great future that I could picture.

"There’s many more opportunities (here) that Kiwis don’t realise exist and think are normal,” he said.

In April last year, he started taking his creations to art shows.

At the Selwyn Arts Heart Show, he won the people’s choice award and was runner-up for the same award at the Cashmere Arts Show.

His biggest accolade came at the Ashburton Society of Art’s 60th annual exhibition where he won the premier award for one of his horse head creations.

Bosman says where many might see a pile of scrap, he sees a potential sculpture.

"Whether it’s bars or pipes, little button bits or wire bits or whatever, my head just mulls around and starts thinking of what that could be or how it would make a fin or head or hair or eyes.

"I actually do have a book in my bedside drawer for ideas at 2am," Bosman said.

When he’s sculpting, Bosman treats it like a job.

"If you’re at work, you have to work unless it’s smoko.

"I know it sounds pretty simple, but if you do that while you’re at home, it’s amazing what you can get done."

Bosman’s ultimate goal is to start selling enough sculptures to stop working as a builder.

"I think I’m on the brink of change," he said.