Set In Stone

An artist couple looked to their surrounds to create a sculptural home and studio

- Graham Wood

Angus Taylor and Rina Stutzer are an absolute force in the South African art world. Not only are they both well-respected artists in their own right, but they also run one of the country’s most advanced sculpture studios and foundries, Dionysus Sculpture Works (DSW), which casts a good number of the country’s most respected fine artists. Angus has created some of the country’s most recognisable large sculptures, often combining materials such as bronze, steel and stone, although he works with more ephemeral materials such as rammed earth or packed thatching grass, too.

He is probably still associated foremost with his figural work – usually male figures – that engage profoundly with the tension between permanence and the transitory nature of human life. At first glance they might even appear to be made after quite a traditional idiom, but he has always subverted any notion of the monumental bronze statue by putting them in the context of ancient and, beyond that, geological timescales embodied in particular varieties of carefully selected stone.

Although Rina also spends time at DSW in a role that involves broad creative input and implementing core changes on various projects, as well as work on her own large scale public sculptural works, she is perhaps best known as a painter.

As a counterpoint to the fire and the noise and the primal energy at DSW, Angus and Rina’s studio at home represents a more private, reflective space where a sense of tranquillity and connection to nature allows ideas to germinate.