Perth Voice Interactive

THE saga of sculptor Lyndon Dadswell’s The Wildflower State continues to grow more colourful than a field of Morawa  everlastings.

The sculpture, which was rescued from a demolition company’s junk pile after being removed from the old Commonwealth Bank in Hay Street in the 1990s, was loaned to Macquarie University in Sydney and bought at auction by a mystery bidder for $81,000 in 2022.

But the bloke who rescued it from the junk pile says it’s been donated back to him, and the university is putting so many roadblocks in the way of getting it back to WA that he’s starting to suspect they’ve damaged it while packing it up.

Paul Nield says he can’t believe the university would treat a benefactor so shoddily after being loaned a historically-important artwork for 16 year.

“Their lawyers sent me a letter saying I needed to pick it up by February 28 or they would apply for a court order to take possession of it and destroy it or dispose of it,” Mr Nield said.

He offered to pick it up himself and inspect it before it left the university, but says that’s when things got plain weird. 

“They said, ‘oh no, you do know that if you lift the lid, there’s a danger that you will cause damage to the sculpture in the crate’.

“Now, that’s a bit unusual. A lot of crates are made so you can safely remove the contents.”

Mr Nield believes the university is being evasive about potential damage. 

“I said, ‘How could I make a claim if I haven’t seen the sculpture?’ And I said, ‘Anyway, I’m not interested in making a claim at all, for any purpose, if you’ve harmed it or not’.”

The university also demanded he get $20 million in public liability insurance and $10 million in professional indemnity insurance before they’d let him have The Wildflower State.

“They sent me some photographs, but I asked for photographs of the mounts because I’d looked at the sculpture only two or three months ago, and they mounted it really badly,” Mr Nield said. 

Chopped off

“A colleague of mine was looking at the photographs they had sent, and you can just about see two mounts still on the wall after taking it down. Maybe they chopped off an inch or two, I don’t know.”

Mr Nield says he tried to pick up the sculpture before Christmas while he was over east trying to convince federal health minister about the anti-cancer properties of bee pollen, but got “pissed around”.

He says he’d brought a van down from Canberra, picking up a rescue dog from a council pound on the way, but when university staff insisted they didn’t have time to remove the sculpture from its wall, he ended up sleeping in the back because he couldn’t find a dog-friendly hotel.

He says the university then offered to transport the piece over to WA, but later changed its mind and said he’d have to organise the moving and they’d cover the cost.

“Which is all good, but they’re going to bizarre lengths to deter me from looking at it.”

Despite the obstacles, Nield is determined to return The Wildflower State to Western Australia, saying, “if there is damage, then it just becomes part of the journey of the artwork.”

Macquarie University told the Voice it was not aware of any damage to The Wildflower State. 

“Professional art removal services were engaged to deinstall and store the work at the owner’s instruction,” a university spokesperson said.

“The university has made numerous attempts to return the sculpture to its owner for over 18 months.

“The university has advised the owner that the work may be inspected at any time. The university looks forward to the owner collecting the work.”

Just before going to print, and not long after our questions, Mr Nield got back in contact to say the uni had waived the need for professional indemnity insurance.

by STEVE GRANT