Bronzed and beautiful: Artist’s labour of love

Dubbo Photo News

JEN COWLEY talks to sculptors Gillie and Marc Schattner, creators of Dubbo’s newest public art works, about their tribute to the city’s iconic open range zoo and its important wildlife conservation work.

The first thing you notice about the bronze sculpture standing sentry outside Dubbo’s visitors’ centre is its size. The life-sized female rhino figure, accompanied by her baby, is three metres long, stands 1.3 metres high and weighs in at a hefty 800kg.

It’s massive – as are its fibreglass twins, situated at both the entry to Taronga Western Plains Zoo (TWPZ) and the city’s airport – but then so is the threat to the magnificent real-life beasts to which this newly installed public art work pays tribute.

Each year, nearly a thousand black rhinos meet their tragic and untimely death at the hands of poachers driven by a rising world-wide demand for the animals’ prized horn and it’s estimated there are fewer than 5000 of the creatures remaining in the wild.

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Dubbo Bronze Rhino Statue Gillie and Marc