Conrad Hicks specialises in hand-forged metal furniture and sculpture, made using traditional jointing methods which he believes are essential to the symbolic meaning of the finished form. The Toolmaker’s Server, made for his 2019 Southern Guild solo, Implement, is a complex piece of furniture whose structural design enables it to balance and hold together without the use of welded joints. The server’s surface is made of machined cast iron, clad with copper on either end and supported by forged steel legs. The steel struts pierce the server’s top, where they are held in place by a series of sculptural copper wedges. The entire work ripples with a primal energy, captured in the hammered marks and archetypal forms that define the Cape Town blacksmith’s oeuvre.
DATE
2019
MATERIALS
Cast iron, copper, brass and high-carbon steel
DIMENSIONS
170 x 55 x 97/135 cm
STYLE
Contemporary
HERITAGE
South Africa
