Paddle Venus Five relates to a series of sculptures that William Turnbull executed in the 1980s exploring the theme of idols. Turnbull had been inspired from early on in his career to archetypal shapes that he saw recurring throughout history. Visits to museums, including the British Museum, and his travels around the world had exposed him to archaeological and anthropological artefacts that he felt held a sense of timelessness which he wanted to explore within his own body of work. Turnbull's first experiments into this exploration in the mid 50s were textured and patterned but later on when he returned to the Idols in the 80s, their surfaces became much smoother. The later Idols have many sources; ancient fertility figures, primitive tools and religious statues. The Paddle Venus series, like the Leaf Venus and Queen series are partly based on the flat, oval shape of a Churinga, a totemic object carved in wood or stone and held by the Aboriginals to be sacred. Churinga's are generally highly decorated with designs that represented the sacred stories and history of the tribe that created them, however Turnbull's markings on the Paddle Venus series, drawn from a personal vocabulary of symbols; lines, dots and protrusions, are enough to suggest the sculptures are figurative in some sense rather than completely abstract pieces, as the title, given after the series was created, suggests. The ambiguous nature of these sculptures invites the viewer to multiple readings and rather than inflict his own narrative onto the sculpture, Turnbull invites a dialogue between his audience and sculpture that sums up Turnbull's statement: 'You can never understand every work of art completely. Each time you encounter it you have a new experience. The mystery is in this elusiveness'. Paddle Venus Five, with its varied sources, leaves its imprint in one's mind as a powerful presence in its own right.