A garden that contains over 66 sculptures enfolded in its dips and rises just can’t be dealt with in a single Post … but just to keep your interest piqued the works here are viewed through a different lens. Light and shade. Sepia and greyscale. The monotones allow you to look past extraneous matter and focus only on the explosive power and raw untamed energy of the sculptures. The tensions between being animal and being human. Yes, we’re back in the Dylan Lewis Sculpture Garden on Mulberry Farm in Stellenbosch.
The image above was taken in what was once the sculptor’s studio on the farm. It has been turned into a small museum, with charcoal sketches pasted on the walls, wire-frame heads and torsos in the corners, acrylic leopard and cheetah maquettes prowling restlessly towards the light.
Within, and without … two female sculptures, sensual from whichever angle you view them. The shamanic figure on the right is in fact half-female, half-black-eagle — just check out the sharp talons that are her feet and, of course, her unfurled wings.
Look, I don’t have an obsession with posteriors but I do like to see the world from a different perspective. Nevertheless, Dylan Lewis’s explosive energy is evident in every ounce of his sculptures, front or back.
