Bronze Act
Cape Town sculptor Nic Bladen casts unique botanicals into bronze, creating artworks he hopes will last as fossils into the future
Nic is working on a Protea nitida (dwarf) | Photography by Warren Heath/ Bureaux
“Somehow the orchid fraternity got hold of me.”
It sounds like a plot twist in a floral conspiracy novel, but this was perhaps the turning point in sculptor Nic Bladen’s career. From making a living creating jewellery, Bladen was asked by the president of the local orchid society if he would cast a few whole orchids in bronze.
A former dental technician, Bladen had learned about bronze sculpture under the watchful eye of Otto du Plessis at Bronze Age Art foundry before going out on his own. He’d been struggling along when the orchid request came.
Nic collecting plant matter in the Baskloof Fynbos Reserve which is situated ‘over the mountain’ from his studio on the coastal belt above the small settlement of Scarborough. On clear days one can see the Cape of Good Hope in the distance. Nic’s Spinone Italiano, Bruhno, follows his every step.
Nic preparing a cast for one of his plant sculptures. The plants are attached to the base of the cast and the cylinder is then filled with plaster of Paris.
“I cast a flower one day and that was it. Lightbulb moment. I’m casting at 0.3mm, but I am also casting tree stumps. It’s a marriage of the disciplines.”
The orchid job successfully executed, the penny dropped about how beautiful organic matter casting can be. Bladen embarked on a botanical path that has taken him to where he is today, exhibiting in both the Everard Read Gallery in London and across South Africa, with a workshop in a heritage building in Simon’s Town.
Simon’s Town, along the Cape Peninsula’s southern side is a quaint little coastal village in that at street level in its architecture, fish ‘n’ chip shops and pubs is more reminiscent of Cornwall than it is of anything South African. The similarities end where the town hits the mountain slopes it is built on. Surrounded by the Cape Fold Mountains, the area is covered in indigenous flora from proteas to buchu and thousands of other species in between. Some common, many rare; this is Bladen’s foraging ground.
Hardened bronze is inserted into the furnace to melt.
A freshly cast Leucadendron salignum, Golden sunshine conebush
His process is relatively simple in concept, but difficult to get right. “I go for a walk, find a plant or get some cuttings, legally, and then it starts with some very simple jewellery molding practices. In normal jewellery this would be a wax form, something you carved yourself or did in a mold."
He admits that sometimes it doesn’t work. "Things that get in the way include ego and over-confidence. Whenever you think things are going well, a bus hits you. Sometimes a mold cracks, or I get a hole in the mold and once you pour in the metal it falls through the hole and that’s wasted, so it’s just about being mindful of each and every task you undertake. Go slow and do every single move correctly. If you are not there, you have to do it over.”
Many of the plants Bladen is casting are endangered. "These plants might not be here in 200 years’ time. There was an amazing photo of a house where everything was burnt to cinders. The only thing left in the house was a bronze sculpture — that’s what could happen with these plants. I’m making metal fossils.”