CARVED BONE

With all this talk of bone collecting I decided to feature the work of one of our local but internationally acclaimed sculptors, Carl Roberts.




His work is brilliant and though he carves in wood a lot of the time he also carves wonderfully whimsical pieces from found bones such as the scapula of an elephant or buffalo, the pelvis or humerus of a giraffe, the mandible of a hippo or the vertebra of a whale.




The shape dictates what he will carve. A scapula, for example, lends itself to carving trees with lattice type branches, sometimes housing baboons, leopards, owls or .....a man.

"Like the Rorschach (ink blot) test, the material often suggests images and sometimes presents them in an unusual way. " says Roberts.

"I work like the automatic artists of the Surrealist movement in that I trust my subconscious to generate ideas."

"The image made depends ultimately upon what lies in the subconscious, elements of chance and the spirit of the times." - Carl Roberts

The Stormbringer by Carl Roberts. All photos from the Carl Roberts website.

ROBERT SLINGSBY

I love the work of Robert Slingsby. From his detailed paintings inspired by San petroglyphs and his sculptures created from found objects......to the amazing log cabin he built for his family at the edge of the Bokkemanskloof forest in South Africa.

He built it from scratch, one log at a time, with very little 'know how'. It sits between woodland and megalithic rocks ......some of these rocks being incorporated into the house.

I mentioned breeder ideas in an earlier post. One can see that one of Slingsby's breeder ideas revolves around suitcases, luggage passing through scanners, customs at airports and the current state of heightened security. Last year he held an exhibition entitled 'Clearing Customs'.




"I was at Heathrow, feeling weighed down, fatigued … jet lagged, and it struck me how utterly vulnerable and violated we are under this constant surveillance and how normal it has become to be constantly invaded at these places of flux" recalls Slingsby. "I also had the feeling of excess, of a surfeit of stuff that we carry with us, not only in terms of physical luggage, but of psychological baggage."

To see more of Slingsby's work go to www.slingsby.co.za/. His latest paintings include modern iconography pertaining to city life but they are also reminiscent of the San petroglyphs that inspired his earlier work.