Reaching for the sky

source:itsliquidcom
Strijdom van der Merwe is the sculpture & installation winner of It’s LIQUID international contest – First Edition 2012 with his artwork “Reaching for the sky”.

Born in 1961, he resides in Stellenbosch (South Africa) where he focuses all of his work.
Strijdom van der Merwe studied art in several schools and academies like the Universities of Stellenbosch (South Africa), Hooge School Voor de Kunste (Utrecht, Holland), the Academy of Art and Architecture in Praha and the Kent Institute of Art and Design (Canterbury, England). Since 1996 he is working full time as an artist.

Exhibitions and commissions on invitation were done in South Korea, Turkey, Belgium, France, Sweden, Lithuania, Japan, Australia, Germany, England and Italy.
He held many personal exhibitions in various art galleries in the past years and his work has been bought by numerous private and public collectors.

As a land artist in general he uses the materials provided by the chosen site. His sculptural forms take shape in relation to the landscape. It is a process of working with the natural world, using sand, water, wood, rocks etc…
He shapes these elements into geometrical forms that participate with their environment, continually changing until their final probable destruction. He observes the fragility of beauty, while not lamenting its passing, what remains is a photographic image, a fragment of the imagination. While a visual record is materially all that is left, he also leaves us a reminder of the capacity, however feeble, of an individual to alter the universe by embracing the ceaseless changing of nature, actively contributing to it and, in so doing, modulating and beautifying the outcome.

In 2012 the CIRCA Gallery of Johannesburg (South Africa) has dedicated a Solo Exhibition to him but we want to underline a beautiful installation that he made during the Soccer World Cup in Johannesburg (2010) with the name of “Fileds of Flowering Hands”.
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source:contemporaryearthartwordpresscom
fSTRIJDOM VAN DER MERWE is a South African land artist. He works with the materials provided by the chosen site and shapes sculptural forms in relation to the landscape.It is a process of working with the natural world, the elements of which are shaped into geometrical forms that participate with their environment, continually changing until their final destruction. Theese sculptural intervention arise from an interpretation of the fragility of beauty, which passing is not lamented, but evoked by a photographic image and the imagination.
The artist also reminds us of the capacity, however feeble, of an individual to alter the universe by embracing the neverending changing of nature, actively contributing to it.