Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden
Dylan Lewis Sculpture Garden
Cape Town
South Africa
2016

‘Where does animalkind end and humankind begin? What of the wild and the primitive within? In exploring these tantalising enigmas, Lewis searches wilderness, myth and ancient belief systems for inspiration, meaning and answers.’

https://thescribsandnibs.com/africa/south-africa/dyland-lewis-sculpture-garden/

https://www.dylanlewis.com/studio/work/big-cats

Between 1993 and 2000 Lewis explored the cat form, focusing primarily on the large feline predators of Africa, namely the leopard, lion and cheetah.

His large cat sculptures began as a direct and literal, visceral response to the wild animal within its natural environment. He was fascinated by the raw and totally intact instinct behind these feline physical expressions, seeing them as symbolic and archetypal bodily responses – the most extreme manifestations of intrinsic animal being.

Lewis never set out to realistically depict these animals for their own sake. Instead, the cat was chosen as a metaphor that was strong enough and mysterious enough to convey his deeper passion for wilderness areas: those untamed tracts of rugged landscape the large felines inhabit and where the sculptor feels most at home.

The cornerstone of Lewis’s artistic ethos has always involved long hours of drawing and sketching from life, in front of his living, breathing subject as he observes, smells and senses it. For him, the act of drawing is also a meditation of focused observation, and he constantly returns to it while sculpting, filling books with sketches, notes, and drawings.

The surfaces of Lewis’s cats very often take on the landscape’s textural qualities – instead of skin and animal fur, they are textured with elements of wilderness and also with the artist’s own handprints.



The Dylan Lewis Sculpture Garden is a perfect way to spend an afternoon around Stellenbosch, just 1 hour outside Cape Town. A self-guided tour will take you on a lovely 2km walk through the gardens and around the magnificent sculptures. The gardens are manicured with flowing bushes and delicate fynbos around ponds, with the backdrop of the Stellenbosch mountains.

Dylan Lewis is a South African sculptor artist, most known for his big cat sculptures. His more recent works focus on the human form and exploring human’s inner-wilderness.


Kirstenbosch is an important botanical garden nestled at the eastern foot of Table Mountain in Cape Town. The garden is one of 10 National Botanical Gardens covering five of South Africa's six different biomes and administered by the South African National Biodiversity Institute.


https://www.sanbi.org/gardens/kirstenbosch/

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden is acclaimed as one of the great botanic gardens of the world. Few gardens can match the sheer grandeur of the setting of Kirstenbosch, against the eastern slopes of Cape Town’s Table Mountain.