Conrad Hicks

ld in London initially but was drawn to blacksmithing by his interest in the discipline of doing a ‘craft’. In 1991, he opened his forge workshop in Cape Town – today housed in The Bijou, an old Art Deco cinema in Observatory, which he bought and began restoring in 1998. Conrad sees his artistic practice as an instinctive search for beauty. Working intuitively, he allows his materials and labour-intensive process to determine the final form. In the process of cutting, pressing, heating, hammering, and stretching metal, he discovers an archetypal language that calls to mind ancient art forms. His commissioned work has included gates, screens and sculptural installations for well-known Cape Town landmarks and public venues, such as Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Tokara Winery, Ellerman House, and the 2010 World Cup Hero Walk, as well as for private residences in South Africa, the US, and Switzerland. For the past 10 years, Conrad’s work has evolved to focus more on sculpture and one-off collectible pieces. He has exhibited with Southern Guild since 2013 when he was included in the influential Heavy Metal show at the Bronze Age Foundry in Woodstock. Since then he has shown to international audiences at design fairs such as Design Miami/ Basel, Design Days Dubai, and Collective 1 in New York. Expressive and highly textured, his pieces have an intimate connection with nature, even as many veer towards abstraction. His Wife? Bench and the No. 2 From Maquette Series side-table retain a charged, animal-like energy, while other pieces – such as Chaise Muse and Copper Chaise – are more ethereal, the copper beaten so thin it appears to float. All of his work, from the most functional to the most purely sculptural, he sees as tools.