ABSA L'Atelier Merit Award

The ABSA L’Atelier is South Africa’s most prestigious art competition and is held annually for artists between ages 21 to 35. This award not only ensures South Africa’s emerging artists of recognition, but also affords them the opportunity to develop their talents abroad. A look through the list of previous winners will testify to this.
 Four prizes will be made available: First prize, two merit award prizes and the Gerard Sekoto Award for the most promising artist. 
One of the merit awards is done in cooperation with the Sylt Foundation. The merit winner will sopend a two-month residency on the island of Sylt in Northern Germany.

Nina Kruger, winner of the 2015 Barclays L'Atelier Merit Award and new fellow of the Sylt Foundation

Nina Kruger (21) is a fine art student based in Pretoria. She mainly works with wood, gelatin and gelatin-like media. She won the 2015 Barclays L'Atelier Merit Award for her sculpture "those forgotten" and will spend the months of october and november 2016 on the island of Sylt. We are very happy about our new Sylt Foundation fellow!

Jaco van Schalkwyk, Nina Kruger, Indra Wussow, Bevan J. de Wet

This artwork critically portrays the way in which the environment is being treated and disregarded.

The specific wood that is used is of a tree that was cut off because the tree messed on the driveway.

The figures portray a feeling of revenge. Each piece of wood is unique and can stand on its own. Each log has only a head crafted on the top. There is no body or feet carved into the wood.

Kruger left the wood as raw as possible, with only the head to symbolise the conscience or acknowledgement of nature. The bodies of these figures have no limbs; this signifies the way in which nature stands before man. Also, nature is displayed to overwhelm man, because the human element is very small compared to the natural element in each figure.