Artist's plea to return works

DAVID HALLETT/The Press

AT A LOSS: artist Paul Deans in his studio where art works representing hundreds of hours of work and a chainsaw have been stolen.

STOLEN SCULPTURE: One of the stolen pieces.

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A Christchurch artist who created sculptures for the third The Lord of the Rings movie has been robbed.

Paul Deans, the son of Canterbury landscape painter Austen Deans, found on Tuesday that the padlock on the front door of his Heathcote Valley workshop had been cut and five of his sculptures stolen, including a 1.5-metre-high female figure in macrocarpa.

"It's one of the larger pieces I've done. It was quite special," he said. "It's not the sort of thing you show to your mates, and you can't try to sell it anywhere."

Also taken were power tools and a Stihl chainsaw with a carving bar.

Deans, who estimated the value of the stolen items at $12,000, specialises in sculpture and portraits, and prefers wood sculpture.

The stolen sculptures represented hundreds of hours of work, he said.

They included a plaster cast of a skull; a 20cm-high kneeling figure holding a bowl, in mulberry; a life-size head with exaggerated features made out of gingko wood; and a smaller, mask-like face in walnut.

"I just can't see why anyone would take them," he said.

It was the first break-in in the decade he has had his studio.

Deans said he would accept the stolen items back, no questions asked, adding: "Particularly the chainsaw, but that's probably the most unlikely [to be returned]."

Deans joined the sculpture department of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, creating feature sculptures in polystyrene, and made limestone sculptures for director Peter Jackson's country estate in Wairarapa.

- © Fairfax NZ News