Location: South Africa
Artist Tienie Pritchard is one of the most prominent sculptors in South Africa. He became renowned for his monumental public commissions like the 9m high George Harrison in Johannesburg and the 3m x 10m wall panel in relief in the South African Commemorative Museum in Delville Wood, France.
Throughout his career, the nude human form was his passion and the basis of his creative motivation. Tienie believes that the human body is rich in associations and when turned into art, it can be expressive of a wide range of concepts. A recurring theme in his work is the interconnectedness and spiritual kinship between man and animal. In ancient times all animals had spiritual significance. He illustrates this spiritual kinship by combining his nude compositions with animals or symbolic objects of animal origin, like horns, tusks or skulls.
Tienie works in the classical realistic style, because he is convinced that he can capture the beauty of the nude human form in three dimensions best in this style.
Tienie designs his sculptures for bronze as final medium. He models his sculptures in clay and then cast them in plaster of Paris. A limited series is then being cast in bronze at an art bronze foundry. The bronze is finished by polishing certain areas and by patinating the unpolished and polished areas in differing shades.
“Ayesha: 1,2m high; bronze; edition of 15”
The novel "She" by Rider Haggard inspired this sculpture. She, also called Ayesha, is depicted while standing on an altar, adorned with Egyptian and ethnic African symbols, in the flames of the Pillar of Life that bestows everlastng life and youth.
“Cleopatra”
