NIC BLADEN
South African artist Nic Bladen has become known for his extraordinary botanical sculptures, which demonstrate the technique he pioneered of casting entire plants in bronze and sterling silver. Born in 1974 in Pretoria, Nic trained in the field of dental technology, a discipline that requires incredible precision and attention to detail. After working for eight years making gold and porcelain crowns in various dental laboratories in South Africa and the UK, Nic developed an interest in sculpture and began working at the Bronze Age Foundry, learning large scale bronze casting as well as all aspects of metalwork. Knowledge of the two seemingly different fields of dental technology and bronze casting precipitated Bladen's experimentations in 2001: casting flowers and leaves. In marrying the micro and macro disciplines, he pioneered a way of developing perfect castings of organic matter. His way of preserving/fossilizing plants and flowers involves a method known as 'lost wax casting', or 'cire perdue', and it involves creating molds from actual organic material, and then transforming these into once-off sculptures of entire plants.
Biography Sourced From: http://www.nicbladen.com/biography/
Aloe
Bronze
21x23x19cm
Brunia Noduliflora
Bronze and Silver
30x36x27cm
Images Sourced From: https://www.everard-read.co.za/artist/NIC_BLADEN/works/768
My Thoughts:
I went to Nic's exhibition last year in Johannesburg and I must say it blew my mind.
Yes, they are bronze casting of an object,in this case entire plants, so you can debate the artistic value and meaning etc etc etc blah blah blah. I could debate the possible argument from the stand point of the technical skills it takes to cast such fragile detail, but I won't, because it's obvious.
All I will say is, when you walk into a large white washed gallery space and your gaze meets with these beautiful sculptures all argument flies out the window. The sheer beauty of these works still the mind. I stood quietly and watched peoples reactions. They became still, not the usual kind of gallery stillness, but rather the kind of calm one experiences in nature. The kind of calmness that comes over you after a near crisis and you realize that everything is going to be okay.
It had been a long day of gallery hopping and Joburg traffic, but I felt the way one should after seeing an exhibition, I felt positive, invigorated and filled with hope.
Sometimes you just need to stop the debate and enjoy beautiful art for what it is, as it is.
Contact Nic Bladen:
https://www.facebook.com/NicBladenBotanicals/
