Oamaru sculptor Don Paterson has an eye for the monstrous and unnatural and a taste for reality ‘‘tinted with fantasy'', and he has transformed the 116-year-old 3200sq m Oamaru Railway Station into an art installation that echoes those early steps into the unknown.
Oamaru's Prehistoric World will open on June 3, but even then visitors will only see the ‘‘tip of the iceberg'', Mr Paterson said as he guided the Otago Daily Times through the space yesterday. In an audiovisual room he played a 12-minute short film created by friend and long-time collaborator Oamaru painter and film-maker Jac Grenfell.
Antarctic rocks from David Harrowfield's collection, donated by friend to the project Zena Keen, offered a taste of the genuine learning that occurred at Oamaru's Prehistoric World and Dave Herbert had created plywood skeletal dinosaurs that inhabit it.
The ‘‘face'' of Oamaru's Prehistoric World, Larry, a sly impish creature seen throughout, rides a life-sized giant moa, one of Mr Herbert's creations, next to a fibreglass cast of a T-Rex skull.
Oamaru's Prehistoric World was a place where a knight in shining armour would fight a triceratops, Mr Paterson said.‘‘Why ‘do' dinosaurs like everyone else?'' he said. ‘‘I just want something really spectacular.''Mr Paterson would point guests to the Vanished World Society in Duntroon. What he created was ‘‘a bit of reality-based fantasy, if there is such a thing'' and what he hoped would soon become one of Oamaru's main attractions.
Mr Paterson was a key figure in setting up Steampunk HQ. The sturdy metal in the building is very much his style. Mr Paterson and Mr Grenfell were also instrumental in the design of Steampunk HQ's Infinity Portal and the massive Steampunk train that sits out front.
He was one of those behind the 3.2m-high, 4m-long
Steampunk-styled elephant in the Steampunk playground at Friendly Bay and the 6m-high giant penny-farthing swing there too. Mr Paterson's footprint at the Oamaru Harbour extends to the Galley, the Steampunk-themed cafe with rusted-metal exterior was his brainchild.
Mr Paterson bought the Oamaru Railway Station for $1000 in March last year, but the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust imposed a condition that he spend at least $100,000 (plus GST), excluding labour, on maintenance and restoration over the following 18 months.
Mr Paterson said he spent the sum in the first four months as the building was derelict, leaking and rotting.‘‘It was getting tired,'' Mr Paterson said.
When Mr Paterson bought the building he had three priorities: preserve the building; create a hub; and create something for people to enjoy again. ‘‘In a strange way it does become a portal to other places''.
The Station, in Humber St, already houses a restaurant and brewery, which opened in October last year.
Virtual reality, in which visitors would be able to put on headsets and ride a dinosaur, or watch a stampede of dinosaurs around them, would become a part of the experience by the end of the year.
‘‘It has to evolve,'' he said. ‘‘It has to grow, everything needs to grow.''
