Sculpture in the public eye

PHOTOS: Gregor Rohrig

Cape Town now boasts a remarkable new Paul du Toit sculpture celebrating the human form at the new Strand Towers Hotel in the hub of the city.

Off the back of Cape Town’s recent bid for World Design Capital 2014, owner of Strand Towers, Jacques Osse, commissioned local artist Paul du Toit to create a sculpture for his new hotel.

The brightly coloured human form that now overlooks the hotel swimming pool has been named “That’s me on the corner” – a play on the REM hit “Losing my religion”.

“I was influenced by a metal plate I found when looking around a scrap heap of metal at a stone-crushing plant,” Paul says. “The plate was rusted and pitted with an amazing patina from years of exposure to the elements of nature.”

Fascinated by the holes in the plate (used to sort different-sized rocks), the artist created a range of sculptures focusing on negative spaces. “This seemed fitting and a nice change from staring at lines for so many years.”

When the opportunity to create a monumental sculpture for the public space in Strand Street came up, the artist immediately thought in terms of positive and negative spaces. Working in this way proved to be both aesthetically appealing and practical: “In Cape Town we have to factor in the tremendous strong wind we get, so the holes allow for the wind to pass through the sculpture.”

Paul adapted a 4,000 year old sand-casting method to create the sculpture in aluminum, which he then coated with automotive paint. The end result represents Paul’s personal interpretation of the human form.

More information: http://web.me.com/pauldutoit/pauldutoit_projects/About_Paul_du_Toit.html