 CAROLINE VAN DER MERWE Grace I |
 CAROLINE VAN DER MERWE Grace II |
 CAROLINE VAN DER MERWE Dopo Il Bagno |
 CAROLINE VAN DER MERWE Miriam in Bronze |
 CAROLINE VAN DER MERWE Seated Venus |
Artist's Statement
I started my career as a sculptress in the 60's carving simple bird and fish forms much influenzed by Brancusi.
As I gained in confidence I started to carve rather abstracted female forms mostly inspired by drawings I had done from models. Now my influence was mostly Henry Moore.
In 1976 I travelled to Carrara, Italy to learn to use pneumatic tools and worked for three month learning more about carving marble from the wonderful craftsmen that work there. From then I and my husband went on an extensive tour of America, me to look at contemporary art and it was here and in Italy that I was glad to realize, that figurative art was not the dead dodo that I had been lead to believe.
We returned home to find South Africa at the height of the Apartheid unrest and violence and I knew that my beautiful abstracted female forms no longer had any relevance in the prevailing climate.
I started my second period using the male figures with his strong muscles and tendons. The work became more figurative and I started to bind the figures with bindings that came from within the figure, to crucify with the figure and crossforming a single unite, and to constrain and confine the figure in many different ways.
In 1983 I came to live and work in Pietrasanta / Italy where for the first time I started to work in bronze. I found this medium very suitable for what I was trying to express. I worked with the male figure in both marble and bronze for nearly 20 years and towards the end of this period I realized that the tension was no longer there, that the bindings had loosened and in some case had even become wings. I then knew that I had to move on.
I started my third period going back to my female drawings. Modelling in clay, models for marble, bronzes and terracotta. Now the figures were no longer abstracted and my desire was to make beautiful serene sculptures seeking a perfect fusion of idea, three dimensional design and material used to realize the sculpture.
© 2010 All rights reserved. Origination by Di Conradie.