Notes

Wim Botha is well known for his remarkable prowess as a sculptor. His three-dimensional output includes appropriations of renaissance and baroque figure sculptures as well as numerous portrayals of animals. Botha typically renders his sculpted subjects using unorthodox materials, including anthracite, books, mielie-meal and polystyrene. An accomplished draughtsman too, he often meticulously plans and renders his sculptures in exacting drawings. This charcoal drawing directly quotes the form of A Thousand Things part 10, a laminated pine sculpture portraying two feline heads in ceremonial form, which appeared on his 2012 solo exhibition A Thousand Things at Stevenson, Cape Town. Botha's father was an administrative director of the National Parks Board (now South African National Parks), which enabled him to see wild animals in various wildlife parks as a child. "I cannot imagine that this hasn't played some part in my use of this material, although I don't think it is meaningful to attribute it entirely to that. The use of animal imagery as a metaphor for human attributes is as old as the very first visual representations of and by humans," he said in 2005.¹

1. Botha, Wim. (2005) "In conversation with Michael Stevenson", in Wim Botha, limited edition catalogue for Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art 2005, p. 63.