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