NIC BLADEN

(b. 1974 Pretoria, South Africa)

South African artist Nic Bladen has become known for his extraordinary botanical sculptures, which demonstrate the technique he pioneered of casting entire plants in bronze and sterling silver. Born in 1974 in Pretoria, Bladen trained in the field of dental technology, a discipline that requires incredible precision and attention to detail. After working for eight years making gold and porcelain crowns in various dental laboratories in South Africa and the UK, Bladen developed an interest in sculpture and began working at the Bronze Age Foundry, learning large-scale bronze casting as well as all aspects of metalwork. Knowledge of the two seemingly different fields of dental technology and bronze casting precipitated Bladen's experimentations in 2001: casting flowers and leaves. In marrying the micro and macro disciplines, he pioneered a way of developing perfect castings of organic matter. His way of preserving/fossilizing plants and flowers involves a method known as 'lost wax casting', or 'cire perdue', and it involves creating moulds from actual organic material, and then transforming these into once-off sculptures of entire plants.

Nic's first solo exhibition, 'Peninsula', held at Everard Read Gallery Cape Town in 2013, focused on the richness of botanical diversity that surrounds the artist's Simons Town studio, which is situated within the heart of the Cape Floral Kingdom, the smallest yet richest of the world's six floral kingdoms. For this show, concessions from landowners on the peninsula enabled Bladen to harvest such rarities as a Blue disa and the endemic Serruria Villasa, amongst others.

In 2015, Nic worked as Artist in Residence at Tswalu Kalahari, a private game reserve in South Africa's Northern Cape Province. The sculptures that he created during this time, a depiction of iconic, beautiful and strange Kalahari desert plants and trees, formed his second solo exhibition: 'Kalahari: a season at Tswalu', held at Everard Read Johannesburg in October 2015. 

The title of Nic’s third solo exhibition, held at Everard Read & Circa (Johannesburg) in late 2017, is attributed to William J. Burchell, one of the ‘immortals’ of Cape botany, in about 1810. Referencing the floral abundance and diversity encountered even during severe drought, Nic’s latest body of work depicts the tenacity of Cape flora to tolerate this dryness and the splendour with which it does so. 

Nic's unique works can be found in the Standard Bank, Ellerman House and Oppenheimer collections, as well as in many other prestigious private collections, both locally and abroad. 

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2021     

Botanical Studies in Bronze & Silver II, Everard Read, London, UK

2020   

Arid, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

Proteateae, Everard Read, Cape Town

2018

Botanical Studies in Bronze and Silver, Everard Read, London, United Kingdom

2017

…even at this unfavourable [dry] season…, CIRCA Gallery, Johannesburg

2016  

New Works, Everard Read, Johannesburg

2015

Kalahari: a season at Tswalu, Everard Read, Johannesburg

2013  

Peninsula, Everard Read, Cape Town

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2021

In Conversation, Everard Read CIRCA, Cape Town

Masterpiece London, Everard Read, London, UK

2019

Masterpiece Art Fair London, Everard Read booth, London, UK

2018

FNB Joburg Art Fair, Everard Read CIRCA booth, Johannesburg

2017

Off the wall: A group sculpture exhibition, Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg

2016

Reality Check, group exhibition at Everard Read, Cape Town

2014  

'Exact Imagination': 300 years of botanically inspired art in South Africa. Curated by Cyril Coetzee. The Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg

'Design Miami/Basel 2014, Southern Guild Collection, Basel

2012  

Conversation Series, with Astrid Dahl, Jane Eppel and Katherine Glenday,n Amaridian Gallery, New York, 2012: SOFA (International Exposition of Sculpture Objects and Functional Art), Amaridian Gallery, New York

2011  

Rare, joint show with Lisa Strachen at Everard Read, Cape Town

Natural Selection, joint show with Jane Eppel at Rust en Vrede Gallery, Durbanville

2010  

SOFA (International Exposition of Sculpture Objects and Functionaln Art), Amaridian Gallery, Chicago, 

2009  

Realisme, Art Fair, Amsterdam

2008  

Group Exhibition at KZNSA Gallery, Durban

2007  

Greenhouse, group exhibition at Bell-Roberts Gallery, Lourensford