sculpture for film commercial

i got a job to sculpt a lifesize classical bust for some japanese ad in 2 days! it was sleepless but i did it. wire armature, plaster and cretestone.

new hearts

for sale every friday night at the new mobile boutique market at the old biscuit mill...
there are wall hearts; whole hearts; and treasure box hearts.
they are also for sale at imagenius on long street and jellyfish in 210 on long.
they can be custom made to order.
see facebook link to see which ones have sold: daya-hearts
(photos taken by james siegel's camera)

"eat your heart out"

oil paint and goldleaf on a dinner plate, for word of art's plate exhibition currently up at royale on long street, where a percentage of the profit is donated to buying a 'plate of food' for charity.

pencil drawing

"mama afrika"
a pair of A4 pencil drawings, sold from the exhibition "draw" which took place at spin space at the vansa offices in spin street, cape town, from 2 - 13 november.

rocking the daisies 2009

for this rocking live music festival i made a whole lot of giant cane and fabric daisies to brighten up the grass banks around the lake, like telly tubby land. they were so popular that by the saturday morning they were all stolen. just vanished like that. and when i walked around with one as an umbrella all the peoples asked me if they could buy it off me, so pretty were they.
photos coming soon.

afrika burn 2009

photographers to be credited soon

'mother & child' pencil/charcoal portraits

my first in a series of 'mother & child' portrait drawings: 'Caitlyn & Ethan'. bought by Marc Nicholson.
pencil, charcoal, goldleaf, embroidery. A2.
on going series of all my friends and their babies/kids and other gorgeous women to be exhibited next year.
commissions accepted.

PORTRAIT for Deon & Cat

mixed media. digital print of pencil drawing on canvas + oil paint + goldleaf
40 x 40 cm

'HOME' public performance by Art Pays in the golden acre

where the heart is

beneath layers
and painted projections
where i seek. and build
change and become
the place no-one can move me from
home



all photos by nathan heller:

A powerful rite of passage. A game of paper houses. And four performance poets speak their hearts on home, to the sound of a jazz violin. Into the rush of Cape Town's largest inner city shopping mall, the Golden Acre, comes a performance about land ownership and forced removals. One performance only.
'home' is a free public performance happening once only: Friday afternoon, the 29th May, at 1pm in the golden acre off adderly street, cape town, as part of the Cape 09 biennale.
It is put together and performed by the collective Art Pays, with the help of co-ordinater: Shamila Rahim. Artists are: Rampedi Molefe, Daya Heller, Kai Lossgott, Bulelwa Basse; Poets from Lyrical Base project: Wanelisa Albert, Illverse Senteni, Jeisie Bassie, Khululeka Rulumeni; + violinist: Lara Sadler.
We will be intervening in a public space of ordinary traffic with something unexpected and extra-ordinary...
It will exist in time and space for only a brief moment.
Please come and join the experience...

portraits. hearts. prints. exhibition at olympia cafe

CERAMIC HEARTS

watch out for my new ceramic hearts to be for sale in kalk bay modern gallery above olympia cafe, misfit on long street, and jellyfish in 210 on long... or can be ordered directly from me, or custom made: R400-R500
See there are ones that go on the wall; 3-d hearts to hold; and hearts that open like boxes. Each one has unique design.

infecting the city 09: nature lover

photos by alexia webster





I performed for kai lossgott in the 'Fleet of Art' (performance art in a bakkie) in the infecting the city festival of performance art last month in his piece: "nature lover"... Where I ate a lettuce under a shower in a camo tracksuit and bright red wig, in the back of a bakkie which drove around the city centre. It was rad fun. People loved it. and couldn't quite believe their eyes... Photos by Sean Wilson.

ROCK . LOVE valentines gig at Albert Hall

Nathan put this kiff show together with bands mama know nothing and them tornadoes and asked me to do the decor seeming I have so many hearts! some are ceramic, some are plaster, resin, cement and even welded steel. my hearts are made of everything! it looked dashing and smashing if I may say so myself. valentino.
more hearts coming soon and to be for sale. X

NEW MISFIT STOCK

Go have a peek and purchase brand new at Misfit on Long

CANVAS for Mark

1 x 1.5m digital print of photoshopped drawing on canvas + oil paint + goldleaf + embroidery.
for Mark the musician, greenpoint cape town.

ART PAYS PERFORMANCE

SAT. 6 DECEMBER. PERFORMED AT ST GEORGE'S CATHEDRAL. 11AM. WITH MEMBERS OF NEW COLLECTIVE: "ART PAYS". LAUNCHED AS PART OF IKAPA SESSIONS VIA CAPE AFRICA PLATFORM. That's me in the wedding dress.

MERMAID

sculpted in 3 weeks with angela macphearson in her studio in kalk bay for new restaurant in camps bay: the bungalow. she's up and beautiful go have a look. Her name is "Pearl". She has a song.

NIEU BETHESDA

CULTURAL EXCHANGE WITH 9 SWISS ARTISTS AND 9 SOUTH AFRICAN ARTISTS.
for 10 days in tiny town Nieu Bethesda in middle of Karoo - home to Helen Martin's Owl House. We then travelled to JHB to present the project at the bag factory.

RHINO ROOM commission

The new nightclub: The Rhino Room, off long str, commissioned me to weld a steel framework rhino head - to be attached above the bar.

AFRIKA BURNS 2008

The plan changed from people to raindrops. Into the sculpture: 'Rain Desert'. Angela was going to build a dancing girl. We wrote this poem: "And in the heat she danced. and in the rain she danced. In the sun and in the wind and in the flood, she danced. In the calm and in the storm... Always she danced."
And then the dancer left the raindrops and the drops became seeds.

ROCKING THE DAISIES 2008

I helped Buffi build a giant daisy for the rocking the daisies festival.

VENETIAN MASK commission

Infacet is a jewellery shop in Newlands who commissioned me to make venetian masks for the launch of their new premises.



PROCESS

JOURNEY - performed for Out the Box Festival

“JOURNEY” (2007) is a performance piece with life-size, figurative sculptures: “PRAY” and “PHOENIX” (2006). It explores dichotomies of ascent and descent, past and future, growth and stagnation, creation and negation, moving and still, birth and death, temporality and permanence…
Performed at erf(81) kultural kollective (farm in Tamboerskloof) for Out The Box Festival of Puppetry and Visual Performance September 2008.
Performed in 'real-time' with no designated beginning or ending.

OUT THE BOX FESTival of puppetry & visual performance

I worked on the Out The Box festival, in September this year, helping out Janni Young from UNIMA. I worked mostly as a mentor for theatre groups from townships who participated in the "Active Puppets Training and Development" programme, which facilitated and showcased their pieces in the festival. I assisted in the construction of their props, and mostly helped Zimasa's group: "Iselwa Lesizwe" from Khayelitsha on his piece: "Through the Eyes of the Sexworker."
Extract from "Active Puppets" programme:
" Puppetry is a powerful tool for social development and is underutilized in South Africa, partly because of lack of skills in this area. UNIMA SA's Active Puppets program encourages a vital artistic, social and economic area of development in South Africa. All Active Puppets trainings are free of charge and wherever possible participant expenses are covered.
The objectives of Active Puppets are:
To provide training in multimedia and puppetry skills to historically disadvantaged artists and youth.
To spread the use of visual performance as a tool for communication and social development.
To create employment in the creative arts.
To encourage cross-cultural interaction via the medium of visual performance."
These are images of Zimasa and his set design.

SWIM HOME

"swim home" acrylic on canvas. new owner: adam

plan for Afrika Burns 2008

"THE UNBROKEN HEART"
(daya & dust)

Tall figures
stretching to the sky
like trees
looming in a desert
landscape
casting shadows on the cracked earth
and you who pass between them.

They thirst for the sun
like a prayer.
They wait for the wind
like the dawn.

"The willow knows what the storm does not.
That the power to endure pain outlives the power to inflict it."

















AFRIKA BURNS WEBSITE

elephant puppets

These were made with Janni Younge from SOGO theatre for Solms Delta wine farm in Franschoek in a workshop with the farmworkers for the Franschoek Bastille Festival, which took place last Saturday 12 July.

WHOLE

artist sculpture and model:


"WHOLE" has been accepted into the sasol new signatures competition and will be exhibited in Pretoria at the Pretoria Art Museum from 20 Aug. - 21 Sept.
steel, plaster, cretestone, feathers
150 x 40 cm
“Whole” is a pubescent black girl, whose skin colour has been taken away.
She has a hole where her heart is - filled of feathers, like a nest you want to climb inside.
Puberty is a period of becoming.
South Africa is in a state of change.
Jesus had holes in his hands.
Baby feathers allude to the potential for flight.
Her big feet root her firmly on the ground.
Her eyes are open.

in process:



I sculpted her in my new wooden cottage home in welcome glen. It was such a joy. My first real scu;lpture in two years. She is my favourite at the moment. I finished it on wednesday 02 june. It took me approx. 3 weeks from welding the armature to completion.
there will be many more. i feel them ebbing from the unmade world. through me into this one.

oil portraits: south african people

"this place I call home"
oil on canvas
30 x 30 cm each

mural

at the back of rafikis, bottom of kloofnek rd, finished just before i moved house.

prints for misfit dusseldorf

just arrived at misfit, dusseldorf, germany

open heart never stop

sold to 2 girls from portobello on long street, 07 july. they going to live in america.



'dark heart never fear' and 'open heart never stop'
canvas prints of photoshopped charcoal and pencil drawings + goldleaf, embroidery and paint.
1m x 30 cm each.
used to be up at arternative on kloof. going up at portabello on long str.

afrika burns - oude moulen 08 march

In a day and a half we built a sculpture to burn on saturday night at the 'decompression' gathering at oude moulen.
the sculpture:
(the inside form is the bust of a pregnant woman made out of feathers from a body cast.)


making it:

the burn (around midnight):

ARTISTS: buffi, patrick (garbage engineer), cindy (superwoman), me. and thanks also for help - roxy from raffiki's and I'm so sorry I forgot your friends name?

City Bowl Girl

mixed media series exhibited at cafe royale on long street from 22 feb - 22 march as part of yearly MOPP 'cafe circuit' exhibition.
to see these images close-up, visit www.daya-illustration.blogspot.com
MOPP opening night at Annexe gallery:

exhibition at royale:

drawings/digital

examples of the drawn and digital images i have been working on over the past year. since i graduated from sculpture i have worked a lot 2-dimensionally. i remembered how much i love drawing and started drawing my head off. then i saved up for a fancy computer. these images have been printed on canvas and worked into with goldleaf. last year they sold at the bin's R100 closing down exhibition http://www.circuslabs.co.za/; at a charity exhibition: 'show some love' at tokyo star in melville, jhb http://www.carfax.co.za/tokyoStar/tokyostar.html; 'night of 1000 drawings' http://www.1000drawings.co.za/ at the old biscuit mill http://www.theoldbiscuitmill.co.za/; and are presently selling at misfit on long street http://www.misfit.co.za/. i am experimenting with embroidery and paint into the printed image.