school of thought

UwePfaff

Biography

His first job was with a German company, designing rock-cutting equipment. A year later, he departed for Cape Town where he worked as a design draughtsman for an air conditioning company amongst other things.

In 1975 he took his first painting and sculpture classes at the Cape Town Art Centre, a year later holding his first one-person exhibition.

Still a little unsatisfied, he took evening classes at the Ruth Prowse School of Art and Design, studying etching and sculpture. A number of exhibitions followed and both an etching and sculpture were selected for the prestigious Cape Town Biennale in 1982. He was becoming well known for his beautifully carved wooden sculptures. In the early 90's, he took classes in ceramics, subsequently winning first prize in a national competition for a tea-set he designed.

After a hiatus when he concentrated on earning a steady income to support his growing family, Uwe came back with some new work in the late 90s. His silkscreens and what he calls 'metal-pictures' sold well at the first show he held then. Here Uwe demonstrated a renewed propensity of pattern which found different but related form in the two bodies of works. Both comprise simple images composed of and animated by complex patterns, but while the silkscreens have the incessant chatter of an internal monologue, the metal works state themselves more boldly. It is to these that Uwe has increasingly turned his attention, experimenting with materials, scale and format.

He makes the pieces by taking a torch to substantial steel plates and cutting shapes from them. Complex filigrees describes the simple form of a head or a figure, and just as their precise nature recalls Uwe's training as draughtsman, so too does their agitation remind one of his restlessness. He invokes mythical archetypes like humans, animals, tools, elements and various hybrids of these.

The shimmering polished metals lend another layer of ambiguity, but the sheer weight and bulk of the pieces refuses to budge. It is here that this cast of characters and objects spontaneously assemble themselves into stories, the plots of which haven't yet been told.

Early in the new millennium, Uwe's restlessness returned once again and found him experimenting with the leftovers from his steel-cutting. These have subsequently become works of their own. In another inspired mood, he found that, when struck, his sculptures make polyphonic musical instruments.