Nic Bladen works and lives
in the mountainous coastal hamlet Kalk Bay, on the Cape Peninsula in South Africa.
This provides the perfect setting for extracting matter for his work as a sculptor,
jeweller and metalsmith. Nic's work fuses a background in precision dental technology,
with the knowledge and hands-on experience of bronze sculpture casting.
He depicts his meanderings in the Kalk Bay mountains, drawing on the beautiful
indigenous flora known as fynbos (fine or delicate shrubbery).
Using the principles of the lost wax casting technique, Nic experiments
and pushes his own limits in order to cast impossibly delicate flowers. This
fragility is juxtaposed with the extraordinary internal structure and strength
of these pieces.