(b. 1974 Pretoria, South Africa)

South African artist Nic Bladen is globally renowned for extraordinary botanical sculptures that 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 precision- and detail-orientated dental technology. 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. He began working at the Bronze Age Foundry, learning large-scale bronze casting and other aspects of metalwork.

This 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.

Bladen’s first solo exhibition, Peninsula, held at Everard Read Cape Town in 2013, focused on the richness of botanical diversity that surrounds the artist's 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 Cape Peninsula enabled Bladen to harvest such rarities as a Blue disa and the endemic Serruria villosa, amongst others.

In 2015, Bladen worked as an 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 depicted iconic, beautiful and strange Kalahari Desert plants and trees. These formed his second solo exhibition: Kalahari: A season at Tswalu, held at Everard Read Johannesburg, in October 2015.Several solo exhibitions at the Everard Read galleries both in South Africa and London have followed since. These have primarily delved into the spectacular and diverse plant families of the Western Cape.

Blanden’s unique works can be found in the Standard Bank Art Collection, Ellerman House Cape Town, BMW and Oppenheimer Collections, as well as in many other prestigious private collections, both locally and abroad.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023     

Blooming Amazing, Everard Read Johannesburg, South Africa

2021    

Upcoming solo, Everard Read, London, UK

2020      

Arid, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa       

Proteaceae, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2018

Botanical Studies in Bronze and Silver, Everard Read, London, UK

2017      

Even at this unfavourable dry season, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2016      

New Works, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2015      

Kalahari: A season at Tswalu, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2013      

Peninsula, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2019    

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

2018      

FNB Joburg Art Fair, Everard Read CIRCA booth, Johannesburg, South Africa

2017      

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

2014      

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

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

2012      

Conversation Series, with Astrid Dahl, Jane Eppel and Katherine Glenday, Amaridian Gallery, New York, USA

SOFA (International Exposition of Sculpture Objects and Functional Art), with Amaridian Gallery, New York, USA

2011      

Rare, joint show with Lisa Strachan at Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

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

2010      

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

2009      

Realisme, Art Fair, Amsterdam, Netherlands

2008      

Group Exhibition at KZNSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa

2007      

Greenhouse, group exhibition at Bell-Roberts Gallery, Lourensford, South Africa