Design

Dylan Lewis’s Stellenbosch Sculpture Garden

  • The view of the lake Dylan shaped, with Stellenbosch Mountain as backdrop. The face of the stooping Male Trans-Figure III is obscured. “It puts a focus on the body as a vehicle for expression as opposed to the face,” says Dylan.
    The view of the lake Dylan shaped, with Stellenbosch Mountain as backdrop. The face of the stooping Male Trans-Figure III is obscured. “It puts a focus on the body as a vehicle for expression as opposed to the face,” says Dylan.|
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    Dylan Lewis’s Stellenbosch Sculpture Garden|
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    Dylan Lewis’s Stellenbosch Sculpture Garden|
  • Monumental Torso II sits on the opposite side of the lake from the pavilion. “I see the beauty and power of brokenness. The gift is in the wound. In all my sculpture, the textures are more about landscape than human skin or animal fur.”
    Monumental Torso II sits on the opposite side of the lake from the pavilion. “I see the beauty and power of brokenness. The gift is in the wound. In all my sculpture, the textures are more about landscape than human skin or animal fur.”|
  • A female form, Trans-Figure XXII, among undulating, meticulously pruned shrubs. “The paradox of the garden does not escape me: that for someone who dearly loves the wilderness I have attempted to control, contract, constrain.”
    A female form, Trans-Figure XXII, among undulating, meticulously pruned shrubs. “The paradox of the garden does not escape me: that for someone who dearly loves the wilderness I have attempted to control, contract, constrain.”|
  • Torso III rests on a plinth in a poplar grove, where the quietness is almost overwhelming. “The torso has always fascinated me. There is something beautiful about brokenness – the incomplete, imperfect form, the absence of the head.”
    Torso III rests on a plinth in a poplar grove, where the quietness is almost overwhelming. “The torso has always fascinated me. There is something beautiful about brokenness – the incomplete, imperfect form, the absence of the head.”|
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    Dylan Lewis’s Stellenbosch Sculpture Garden|
  • “If I had a totem animal,” says Dylan, “it would be the leopard. For me, the cat is the archetypal symbol of wilderness.”
    “If I had a totem animal,” says Dylan, “it would be the leopard. For me, the cat is the archetypal symbol of wilderness.”|
  • Stone steps lead down to the plaster room, a visual representation of the process behind Dylan’s work, drawing from life, creating an armature and then making the sculpture itself. His shift away from the animal form to the human was part of his break with an old belief system. “It was a break with the animal form, movement into the human form and nudity, which up until that point had been taboo. It was a break on many levels.”
    Stone steps lead down to the plaster room, a visual representation of the process behind Dylan’s work, drawing from life, creating an armature and then making the sculpture itself. His shift away from the animal form to the human was part of his break with an old belief system. “It was a break with the animal form, movement into the human form and nudity, which up until that point had been taboo. It was a break on many levels.”|
  • Stone steps lead down to the plaster room, a visual representation of the process behind Dylan’s work, drawing from life, creating an armature and then making the sculpture itself. His shift away from the animal form to the human was part of his break with an old belief system. “It was a break with the animal form, movement into the human form and nudity, which up until that point had been taboo. It was a break on many levels.”
    Stone steps lead down to the plaster room, a visual representation of the process behind Dylan’s work, drawing from life, creating an armature and then making the sculpture itself. His shift away from the animal form to the human was part of his break with an old belief system. “It was a break with the animal form, movement into the human form and nudity, which up until that point had been taboo. It was a break on many levels.”|
  • Stone steps lead down to the plaster room, a visual representation of the process behind Dylan’s work, drawing from life, creating an armature and then making the sculpture itself. His shift away from the animal form to the human was part of his break with an old belief system. “It was a break with the animal form, movement into the human form and nudity, which up until that point had been taboo. It was a break on many levels.”
    Stone steps lead down to the plaster room, a visual representation of the process behind Dylan’s work, drawing from life, creating an armature and then making the sculpture itself. His shift away from the animal form to the human was part of his break with an old belief system. “It was a break with the animal form, movement into the human form and nudity, which up until that point had been taboo. It was a break on many levels.”|
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    Dylan Lewis’s Stellenbosch Sculpture Garden|
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    Dylan Lewis’s Stellenbosch Sculpture Garden|
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    Dylan Lewis’s Stellenbosch Sculpture Garden|
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    Dylan Lewis’s Stellenbosch Sculpture Garden|
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    Dylan Lewis’s Stellenbosch Sculpture Garden|
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    Dylan Lewis’s Stellenbosch Sculpture Garden|
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    Dylan Lewis’s Stellenbosch Sculpture Garden|
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    Dylan Lewis’s Stellenbosch Sculpture Garden|
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    Dylan Lewis’s Stellenbosch Sculpture Garden|
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    Dylan Lewis’s Stellenbosch Sculpture Garden|
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    Dylan Lewis’s Stellenbosch Sculpture Garden|
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    Dylan Lewis’s Stellenbosch Sculpture Garden|
  • The pavilion was designed by architect Enrico Daffonchio for an exhibition on which he collaborated with Dylan and poet Ian McCallum. It was moved here and will serve as an exhibition space for other artists’ work. Currently on show, as seen in the photograph above, is Louis Olivier’s exhibition 100Generations of Soil, in collaboration with Everard Read Gallery.
    The pavilion was designed by architect Enrico Daffonchio for an exhibition on which he collaborated with Dylan and poet Ian McCallum. It was moved here and will serve as an exhibition space for other artists’ work. Currently on show, as seen in the photograph above, is Louis Olivier’s exhibition 100Generations of Soil, in collaboration with Everard Read Gallery.|

PHOTOS Lambro Tsiliyiannis PRODUCTION Sumien Brink WORDS Elna Van Der Merwe

The taming of the wilderness in Dylan Lewis’ sculpture garden belies his wilderness within.

“I was gripped by a madness that has finally quietened down after 10 years.” Dylan Lewis looks out across the 7 hectares he has moulded into an undulating landscape that mirrors the contours of Stellenbosch Mountain towering above it. Dotting the garden are his sculptures of wild animals, shamanic shapes – some half- human, half-animal – and lately nudes too.

All he started out to do was level some ground where his children could play, but something happened when he first set eyes on the huge earthmover he’d hired. “When I saw the potential of what that machine could do, it gripped me. I spent almost two years with earth-moving equipment, these very large machines contouring the landscape, much as I would with the surface of a sculpture, using the same principles but on a much bigger scale. I developed a sign language with the operator and he became an extension of my hand.”

When Dylan had finished moving the earth around to please his sculptor’s eye, he had 7 hectares of bareness. Looking at this strange, wonderful Eden now, it is a surprise to learn that he never intended to make a garden. Equally surprising is his confession that he knows nothing of garden history, gardening or plants.

He called in the help of garden designer Franchesca Watson. She formulated some of the early ideas for planting and implemented the basic plan. Later, she put Dylan in touch with indigenous plant expert Fiona Powrie, a horticulturist at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden for many years. “I would say, I want this kind of volume or this colour, and she would suggest a plant.

“It is not a linear Western garden imposed on the landscape. It is very organic, very natural. It could appear that nothing has changed here, that no work has been done, because it fits in with the natural order.”

Dylan describes the process as intuitive. “The garden seems to have tendencies towards the Japanese. I have always admired their gardens. Aesthetically there’s something that resonates with me – the distillation of nature to its essence, the contrast of textures.”

We pass a brass plate with a poem, The Rising by Ian McCallum, engraved on it. It talks of the reader’s soul one day raging about an unlived life. Surely this man whose creative expression is rewarded with acclaim is not guilty of a wasted life?

“From an emotional point of view it may appear that I live a congruent life,” Dylan says, “but it has not been easy. I grew up in a very conservative fundamentalist environment. I lived that fully until maybe my mid-30s. Holding myself was difficult. The rest of my life to date has been a response to that, an attempt to recapture an authentic life.”

For more information, visit dylanlewis.co.za. Visits to the Sculpture Garden are by appointment.

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