Spier’s rich collection of contemporary sculpture has grown with the arrival of Rodan Kane Hart’s Emerging Illusionistic Bend. Created in 2015, the work forms part of a series of metal sculptures by Hart that unpack the shapes and ideologies of contemporary South African cities.
Selected by the Spier Arts Trust, Emerging Illusionistic Bend can be found close to the Spier Hotel, where it adds visual interest to the landscape through the illusion and interplay of material and shadow.
Outdoor sculptures - essentially “3D drawings in space” - are important mediums as it presents the viewer with the lines of the sculpture and the natural environment and light.
Emerging Illusionistic Bend uses a 90 degree angle as the primary rubric. This shape has been reproduced, inverted, and placed in regular intervals apart to generate complex structural patterns and forms; essentially creating the illusion of bending steel.
The public spaces at Spier provide a wonderful opportunity for visitors to engage with our diverse South African culture through art. Continuously searching for works that live well outdoors, the Spier Arts Trust intends to add large-scale works periodically, contributing to the experience while providing artists with a platform for their unique artistic expression.
Hart’s work draws guests onto the riverside walkway, and encourage them to explore the farm and other outdoor installations at Spier:
• The Dying Slave by Marco Cianfelli, situated between the Conference Centre and the Spier Hotel
• Jenna Burchell’s The Songsmith (Great Karoo), near the Tasting Room
About the artist
Rodan Kane Hart was born in 1988 in Johannesburg, South Africa. He graduated with a BFA from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town, in 2011. Recent exhibitions include Photographs (2017) at PH Centre, Cape Town; Pattern Language (2013) at WHATIFTHEWORLD Gallery, Cape Town; Forms (S/W) (2014) and Structure (2013) at NIROX Projects in Johannesburg. Group exhibitions include Swatch Faces (2017) at the Sale d'Armi, 57th Venice Biennale, Italy; Off the Wall (2017) at Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg; Graphica (2016) at the Southern Guild Gallery, Cape Town; and New Monuments (2016) at Commune 1, Cape Town.
Rodan’s work is found in both public and private collections throughout South Africa, Europe and Asia and to date he has completed two residencies — one at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shangai, China (2017) and one at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Wakefield, England (2013).
About the work:
Emerging Illusionistic Bend uses a 90 degree angle as the primary rubric. The simple shift and duplication of this shape generates complex structural patterns and forms. This shape has been reproduced, inverted, and spaced in regular intervals apart, creating the illusion of bending steel.
Each of the three points of the shape have been connected to the corresponding points of the opposite (inverted) shape. The distorted plane in between has then been filled with a parallel flat bar, creating the illusion of bending steel. Each angle of the sculpture presents a different perspective though the sculpture. The sculpture emerges over a distance of 5.5 -16m to a maximum height of 2 - 6m.