Adriaan Diedericks was born in Cape Town in 1990 but his upbringing in rural Piketberg pervades the conceptual impetus of his projects. He is a graduate at the University of Stellenbosch and is currently an apprentice under the talented Lionel Smit.

“My work attempts to mimic the expansive landscape of my youth,” he says. “This is evident in the manner in which my practice continually spills forth from drawing into three-dimensionality. Through sculpture I attempt to manipulate the messages inherent to scale and material, having worked in povera substances such as found wood and plastic, often solidifying it in permanence through the use of bronze.”

The body as a vessel for power, glory and inevitable humiliation is a key concept within his work – a thought which binds his re ections on masculinity and heraldic histories. Furthermore Adriaan attempts to confront the viewer with the conditioning of his own perception, leaving the viewer to reconsider his own biased position.

Adriaan received the Best Work Trophy in 2008 at the West Boland Eisteddfod, was a nalist in the University of Stellenbosch Art Competition (2009), the SASOL New Signatures (2010) and the PPC Young Concrete Sculptor Awards (2013), as well as receiving a merit award at the Vuleka Art Competition (2013). Adriaan has work in PPC and MXIT’s private collections, as well as in collections in Belgium, London, Germany and South Africa.