Who's that girl?: the stolen statue mystery that led from the Gold Coast to Sydney's northern beaches
In one of the most brazen incidents, Sun Spirit, a beloved bikini-clad statue by the veteran artist Frank Miles, vanished from its plinth at Currumbin beach during Cyclone Alfred four months ago. Locals believe the noise of the storm camouflaged the rowdy business of separating the 100kg bronze statue from its anchor points with an angle saw.
'I've got four public works on the Gold Coast and three have been stolen,' Miles says.
'One time, they just found the head at a scrap dealer. It looks like they're just taking them for scrap.'
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But in an unexpected second act, the missing Sun Spirit appeared to resurface – almost 1,000km away, lounging by a swimming pool in a real estate listing for a property in Curl Curl, on Sydney's northern beaches.
Tipped off by a Gold Coast real estate agent about the Sydney property listing, local surfie Nicka Atkins posted the sighting in a video on his Instagram account.
'Oh my God, are you kidding me? Look, I'm not accusing anybody of anything, but that sure looks like Sun Spirit to me,' he wrote, superimposing his body on to the Sydney real estate listing video.
'To say I've been waiting for this day for a long time is an understatement. Have a look at this … Come on viewers, tell me is that the Sun Spirit statue sitting down in beach in a real estate video right now. Are you kidding me?'
The sculpture's apparent reappearance triggered a wave of online speculation and media frenzy. The Gold Coast dining precinct Oxley offered a $5,000 reward for information. Atkins made it on to Nine's The Today Show, offering a reward of two cartons of beer for more information.
Soon accusations began to fly against the owners of the Sydney property, Annette and Brett Straatemeier.
'All of a sudden it was just ding, ding, ding – the phone wouldn't stop,' Annette Straatemeier says. 'People were tagging the police, calling us thieves, threatening to come take her back. It was wild.'
Amid all the furore, no one contacted the artist or the homeowners – until Atkins himself sent a mate down south to investigate.
The Straatemeiers swore they had bought the sculpture from Miles nearly 20 years ago. The artist confirmed the provenance, saying he had cast three Sun Spirits, modelled from his daughter but larger than lifesize, and had sold one to the Sydney couple for $20,000, which they had affectionately named Sheila. The third iteration still stands in his studio.
Rather than retreat from the chaos, the Straatemeiers leaned into the moment, looking for a way to transform the misunderstanding into something positive. Longtime supporters of the Starlight Children's Foundation, they decided to donate the sculpture to the Gold Coast council, to take the place of the stolen one, but only if $50,000 could be raised for Starlight.
'We thought, if everyone is so invested in this statue, then let's do something beautiful with it,' Annette said. 'The Gold Coast gets a sculpture back, Starlight raises money for sick kids, and Sheila gets a new life.'
A contrite Atkins pledged to lead the fundraising drive.
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'Annette and Brett are these amazing, wonderful philanthropist people who raise all this money for Starlight Kids Foundation,' he says.
'We've become friends and I'm about to meet them for the first time next week when I come to Sydney, so that's going to be really cool.'
'We've done nothing, really,' Annette says. 'We just wanted to make some good out of a very strange moment. When life gives you lemons, make limoncello.'
Miles, nonplussed about the spate of missing public sculptures in recent years, says he is deeply moved by the gesture.
'It's incredibly generous,' he says. 'I think it's a wonderful offer.'
With bronze fetching about $4 a kilogram, he believes the thefts are motivated by money.
'It's not about the art for these people – it's about melting it down.'
One of his other sculptures, Melody, has survived two attempted thefts, though not unscathed.
'She used to have a bugle,' he says. 'Now she's only got half of one.'
The Gold Coast mayor, Tom Tate, declined to discuss the spate of thefts.
A Gold Coast councillor, Gail O'Neill, says a large bronze pelican mounted on a timber pole in nearby Robert Neumann Park has also vanished since Sun Spirit's disappearance in February.
Gold Coast police say investigations continue.
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