World-renowned sculptor Dylan Lewis’s garden on the slopes of the Stellenbosch mountains is a magical green world caught between the wild and the tamed. The new coffee-table book, The Dylan Lewis Sculpture Garden, captures the beguiling beauty of this Eden.
WORDS Gina Dionisio PHOTOS Courtesy of Africa Press
Located between two worlds – one wild, the other tamed – the internationally acclaimed Dylan Lewis Sculpture Garden borders both a rugged mountain wilderness where leopards still roam and the suburbs of Stellenbosch.
In this garden of private myth on the southern tip of Africa, world-renowned sculptor Dylan Lewis explores the notion of the wilderness within. “I think that part of making this garden has been an attempt to understand my inner world by concretising psychological forms in a physical landscape,” he says.
The coffee-table book, The Dylan Lewis Sculpture Garden, represents a walk through the garden. The text draws on excerpts from the sculptor’s tour to guide the reader through more than 60 sculptures spanning his career to date: his early birds; the large and iconic cats and African animals; and the human figures he has explored since 2005 – including shamanic images, male and female torsos, and increasingly abstract, large-scale works. Thoughtfully positioned along three kilometres of paths, each sculpture speaks directly to the landscape and its visitors about the inherent duality of the human condition – life’s dance of opposites and acceptance of our constantly shifting state. | dylanlewis.com
The Dylan Lewis Sculpture Garden
(Africa Press)
The sculptures featured in this book engage deeply with their surroundings. Their textures draw inspiration from the natural landscape, echoing the rugged cliffs of nearby mountains and the gentle curves of distant hills.
The book is available from The Dylan Lewis Sculpture Garden for delivery and Everard Read Galleries.
One lucky VISI reader stands a chance of winning a copy of The Dylan Lewis Sculpture Garden, valued at R650. Enter the competition, here.
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