Statement

I grew up in Cape Town on the slopes of Table Mountain. Alongside my brother, we constructed elaborate tales of make-believe worlds from our overgrown African garden. Climbing trees — the rough boughs, like huge hands holding us in the overwhelming presence of nature. Watching the world from our perch, it felt like our private refuge. My childhood seemed idyllic, but the ever-presence of apartheid loomed in the background. Since then, I continue to wrestle with the potential for congruity and discord to coexist.

Through my materials, I bring childlike wonder into grappling with contradictions, continuously recontextualizing and remaking.

My mixed media abstract sculpture is characterized by fragmented compositions–sometimes large and free-standing, and at times, small-scale and mounted on walls – they still provide me with worlds of fantasy. I combine real perspective with areas of flat pattern, which brings out their fractured nature as I engage with different ways of seeing. It is my sense of play that moves my work along.

My hands are both constructive and destructive forces - I break sections when I’m indecisive to see what I might fight inside; in this way I banish preciousness, release my control, and move forward beyond anything I could have imagined. After these rash moments I am supercharged - alert - like my ears have pricked up. Sometimes I also feel remorse.

I prefer to innovate rather than master a technique. Using wire, raffia, string, and found cardboard—chosen for their structural malleability and accessibility—I bend, knot, bind, layer, and glue, introducing color and texture to add subtlety. I like my work raw and messy; there are trails of scars, peelings, stripped-away remnants, and repositioned parts, each revealing a change of heart. In a world of conformity, I want to leave a touch of human.