A vandal attack which painted the genitals on a female sculpture a bright pink colour was the reason for its removal from a park near Brisbane, not prudishness, the local mayor says.
However, Moreton Bay Regional Council mayor Allan Sutherland said the statue, which depicts a woman lying in a foetal position with her vagina visible, was "borderline" before it was vandalised earlier this week.
Antone Bruinsma's (Bruinsma) work, The Birth of Venus, was removed from a popular park at Woorim Beach on Bribie Island, yesterday.
The statue, commissioned by the former Caboolture Shire ahead of recent council amalgamations, was taken away on the orders of Mr Sutherland, mayor of the new amalgamated council, who said the sculpture was "offensive to women".
Mr Sutherland said the statue was "borderline" in terms of what it depicted, but the graffiti had made it objectionable, making it necessary to remove the work.
"When it was painted bright pink it was totally unacceptable," he said.
The graffiti meant the sculpture would now become a target, he said.
"It's going to become the local game now.
"It's not the council's job to deliberately offend people, and by leaving it there we would deliberately offend people," Mr Sutherland said.
Attempts to clean the paint off had failed, he said.
"It's just been disfigured now." Mr Sutherland said he might ask for the work to be changed, or placed in an art gallery where it would be more appropriate.
Mr Bruinsma said he was "hugely disappointed" over the sculpture's removal and insulted that he had not been consulted before it was placed in storage.
It had been in the park for six months, he said.
"This takes us back to the beginning of the last century when public artworks were censored back in Britain at the beginning of modern sculpture," he said.
"I'm very reluctant to change the work," Mr Bruinsma said.
"I feel it's insulting to women to remove a vulva because of somebody's attitude." Mr Bruinsma said he had never had a complaint from women about his works depicting female genitalia.
"Some of these so-called civic leaders are a little immature themselves, looking at the female creative power, I guess. It's a very deep-rooted, ancient fear that men have - women are able to reproduce."
The sculptor, whose workshop is in the Gold Coast hinterland, said the statue was supposed to have an anti-graffiti sealant and it would be much cheaper to remove the graffiti rather than the whole sculpture.
