Q&A with Iron Artist Mark Hilltout

INTERVIEWED BY Gina Dionisio

We caught up with Mark ahead of his collaborative exhibition with Nyasha Mashumba titled A Retrospective in Corrugated Iron taking place on 23 May 2024 at Corrugated Iron House in Woodstock, Cape Town.

When did you start creating art?

As a youngster, my father (who was a travelling salesman) would drop me off at local tips and metal scrapyards. I was fascinated by decay, in this case, rust from a very early age.

The drawings I did helped me find a place at Birmingham College of Art, where I decided to specialise in Graphic design. Graphic design led me to advertising.

Having learnt to sew with metal, I started a metal workshop in Woodstock in 2010. My medium is old rusted corrugated iron, and with this material, I made frames, table tops, sculptures, and signage. It was only after four years that I took painting with flattened corrugated iron seriously. And I haven’t stopped since.

Tell us about your style and artistic process?

Because my medium is flattened corrugated iron, my work is unique. My style comes from the decay and patina of the corrugated iron itself. My artistic process is about finding the corrugated iron – not an easy task (it must have aged for at least 100 years).

We bang each piece flat, paint one side with a vinegar and emulsion paint mixture, and leave it outside for days, weeks, or months, depending on the metal. Nyasha and I file it in our “library” according to texture and colour. And then we start the stitching process (like stapling).

What is your favourite subject matter?

The unseen, the overlooked and the glory of imperfection. It surrounds me in Woodstock every day. And every day I see something different.

What does a regular day look like for you in your studio? 

Assuming we have a full library of corrugated iron, we’ll decide on a subject to create in corrugated iron. We select the sheets of corrugated iron, making a palette of colours, and then we cut and stick the pieces back together again (with a drawing or photograph to roughly guide us).

It’s a cycle – find, flatten, paint, rust, collate, cut up, and so on.

What inspires you?

Other craftsmen and artists who see the beauty and complexity of this magnificent material and use it in their own way. There are billions of unwanted and unloved pieces of corrugated iron scattered all over the cape. There are many corrugated iron artists in the world, but to my knowledge, no one bangs it flat.

And once it’s flat you have a canvas….

Can you tell us more about this exhibition?

Our exhibition A Retrospective in Corrugated Iron celebrates the art of reinvention, the resilience of forgotten materials, and the symbolic relationship between the artist, the medium and the viewer. The exhibition is taking place on 23 May 2024 at Corrugated Iron House, 6 Ravenscraig Road in Woodstock, Cape Town. | axisartgallery.co.za

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