Taking inspiration from time, memory, and mortality, Johannesburg-based artist Regardt Van Der Meulen creates impressive figurative steel sculptures in fragments that seem to be floating in the air.
My work is inspired by time, memory and mortality. I am intrigued by not only the decay of human life but also the erosion of our surroundings. Through all stages of birth, growth, fruition and death the inevitable element of decay and mortality is present. People habitually live with a misled sense of security, the illusion that our environment or civilisation is dependable and static. Often times the dangers and violence of the current world we live in interrupts and the illusion of safety is exposed. The sculptures are metaphors for not only the vulnerability of one’s physical body but also one’s emotional and mental state. I used steel as a medium which is usually associated with the impression of unmoving strength. I sculpted each figure in a way that creates the notion that they are incomplete, melting or being pulled apart, deconstructed by a force either from within or without.
Regardt Van Der Meulen
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