Riaan Coetzee

Scent of the Mountain Sculpture Series

Steel sculpture of a Crown of thorns.
Koringkroon III

Nickel-plated carbon steel, Now exhibiting at @escap3gallery as part of the group exhibition “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden”.
Exhibition ends 30 May 2025. Sold.

Karoo Exploration

sculpture series 2024/25
Close-up of the Dipcadi crispum from the Northern Cape.
Dipcadi crispum photographed from above.

Since living in the Karoo, and walking almost daily in the many available empty fields around a small town called Fraserburg, I have taken an interest in the funny little plants that grow in these extreme conditions.

I documented little creatures and various unique and rare succulents, but eventually I began to formulate an idea to sculpt thorns of the more common and humble bush, Buck Honeythorn.

Steel Sculpture of a Buck Honeythorn (Lycium horridum Thunb.) branch.

Slow working and hard materials, stone and steel, are delicately shaped, resulting in and energetic whip of lightning, cracking through the air.

Enlarging thorns really gives a whole new perspective on their sequenced shapes and lends an elegant, albeit lethal, presence to a room.

Riaan Coetzee 2024

Silhouette with detail of Buck Honeythorn.

Buck Honeythorn (Lycium horridum Thunb.)
Buck
Buck Honeythorn growing in lime soil in the Karoo, Fraserburg Northern Cape.

Buck Honeythorn (Lycium horridum Thunb.)
B)

Breath-taking landscapes in the Karoo, where the view goes on for days, ultra violet sunsets, a whole Milky Way stretching across the night sky, alien moonrises over the horizon, and full moons that light up the night, makes for an experience like being on another planet.

Each piece blends into the landscape.

Photo of a flowering Massonia Mimetica plant.
Massonia Mimetica
Hedgehog Lily ( Massonia mimetica )
Buck Honeythorn (Lycium horridum Thunb.)
Buck Honeythorn (Lycium horridum Thunb.)
Buck Honeythorn (Lycium horridum)
Lichen organism on stone.
Lichen organism growing on stone.
Lichen organism growing on stone.
Lichen organism growing on stone.


There is just something so modest and beautiful about Lichen covering the rocks. This amazing organism is so tolerant of all the elements in the Karoo that it manages to grow in direct sunlight and survive extreme heat and cold. Because this organism grows almost anywhere it blends in seamlessly with almost any landscape.

Buck Honeythorn (Lycium Horridum Thunb.)

Karoo landscape photo.
Wild rosemary also known as Kapokbos.
Eriocephalus africanus L. (Kapokbos)


Eriocephalus africanus L, localy known as the Kapokbos, or wild rosemary. This fragrant bush produces small white flowers that look like cotton covering the whole shrub during winter and spring.

The small Karoo town Fraserburg in the Northern Cape.
Surreal of two dogs taking a swim in the dam.
A photo of a Tadpole shrimp.
Crow sitting on a wire fence in the Karoo.
NG Kerk Fraserburg.

A little bit about the artist
Riaan Muller Coetzee

I like sculpture. I have worked in many mediums, from painting, to photography, but on a daily basis you will find me sculpting. 

I wouldn’t want to commit to any one medium. I’d like to get to know them all. I want to learn, understand, and master as much as possible. I know how impossible that sounds and am painfully aware that you can’t master anything if you hop around too much. However, I find that there is a universal substance to matter and the more you work with different stuff, the more you experience the thread of the singular composition. 

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I have worked with the supple and soft, and with the stubborn and even dangerous, but I find every material yields to curiosity. Mostly I have worked with concrete, steel, wood, bronze, paper mache, plaster of paris and ceramics. I hope to work with glass soon.

When I am not making art you can find me walking, or making various fermented things such as cheese, yogurt, sauerkraut, chilly sauce, beer and wine.

To view some past projects, feel free to visit my blog: riaanmcoetzee.blogspot.com