With Jim Wheeler’s small-scale Tanekaha Leaflet, 2010 (cast 2021), it is as if the artist has picked the leaves directly from the forest floor. It speaks of the artist’s profound respect for the land around him, his sculpture as homage to the perfected systems of nature.

His intricate work is, at its core, a manipulation of natural materials. He states: “In essence my sculpture is a spiritual practice; to engage in finding clues to human nature in the natural world...By showing a tree’s life cycle in a small sculpture, held in your hand, allows a tiny insight to speak of a larger truth.”