Life – Relief panel

Bronze | Edition 1/1 | 102 x 103 x 4cm | 18.5 kg | 2024 |

This work is about my/our human connection to the natural environment; the small creatures, trees, plants, bugs, and the life force that spirals out from it all. This unseen essential life energy of nature moves into us as humans but there is also our energy that radiates out

We are so busy in our lives, with family, friends, work, ambitions, selfish needs, doing, doing…we forget to connect to this special energy around us. To stop, sit and belong. We scurry around ‘on top’ of nature, and so often give nothing back. We take, dominate and destroy for our own perceived gains, not cognisant that we ‘belong’. We need this connection and take it for granted, but it is fragile too. We need the spiral of life to be sustained long term, we need the small creatures and the unseen world in the soil microbiome. Without this, we, as well as the natural diversity, will die. There is a reciprocal relationship between humans and nature.

I am fortunate to live surrounded by indigenous forest in The KZN midlands. The various parts of this sculpture are made up of moulded selections of textures and natural aspects found in and around the forest; bark, flowers, grassy sections, a rotting tree, leaves on the ground etc. I have also added a few creatures, a taster of what can be found here. Together they spiral to or from the figure in the centre. She is naked, vulnerable, in her essence, natural and powerful.