Dylan Lewis is a second-generation South African sculptor. Lewis’s international career spans two decades and includes exhibitions in Paris, Sydney, Toronto, Houston and San Francisco, as well as numerous one-man exhibitions in London, where he is among the few living artists to have held solo auctions at Christie’s
Sculpture Garden
A central project in the artist practice is the Dylan Lewis Sculpture Garden in Stellenbosch, a seven-hectare landscape that he personally shaped and filled with more than sixty monumental sculptures.
The artist in essence sculpted a flat canvas of land – with every metre of the seven hectare expanse shaped, articulated and moulded, and two excavator operators essentially serving as a de facto extension of Lewis’ own hands during the process. The artist had never sculpted on this scale before but found that the principles of the practice remained largely the same. ‘I felt like I was walking through a large surface of one of my sculptures,’ he notes. Applying the same techniques he would have done for a smaller work, he worked with the sightlines of the surrounding mountains – the garden forming part of a much larger composition that includes the landscape.
While initially sculptures were placed, replaced or moved until they settled into the garden, they have now become intertwined with the space, creating a dialogue – the landscaping informed the placement of particular sculptures, while the nature of Lewis’ sculpture practice informed the forms excavated and moulded into the earth itself. Unusual in the context of sculpture ‘parks’ or gardens, Lewis’ creation is a consciously composed work in itself, a philosophical framework, rather than merely a platform upon which to display his pieces. And while the hardscaping – pathways, hills, buildings - is now complete, the garden continuously evolves through seasons, the natural order of time changing the vegetation and the dynamic between nature and sculpture.
