Public Spaces

Jane du Rand Ceramic Mosaic Artist

- Moses Mabida Stadium, Durban, South Africa. - Go

- Oyster Box Hotel, Umhlanga, South Africa - Go

- SANParks Head Office, Pretoria, South Africa - Go

- Beauty Spa, Kloof, South Africa - Go

- Mostazal Casino, San Francisco de Mostazal, Chile - Go

- Baragwanath Taxi Rank, Johannesburg, South Africa - Go

- Memorial for Bessie Head, Malvern, South Africa - Go

- Umhlanga Pier, Umhlanga, South Africa - Go

- Point Spinnaker Properties, Durban, South Africa - Go

- Meropa Casino, Pietersburg, South Africa - Go

- ICC - Red Carpet, Durban, South Africa - Go

- Garden Court, Durban, South Africa - Go

- Tongaat, South Africa - Go

- Suncoast Casino and Entertainment World, Durban, South Africa - Go

- Melrose Arch, 450m², Johannesburg, South Africa - Go

- Foyer Columns to the Constitutional Court, Johannesburg, South Africa - Go

- Murals for Sibaya Casino, North Coast, South Africa - Go

- Suncoast Sun Hotel Swimming Pool and Presidential Suite, Durban, South Africa - Go

- Beverly Hills Hotel, Durban, South Africa - Go

Durban's 2010 Moses Mabida Stadium, Durban, South Africa.

Oyster Box Hotel, Umhlanga, South Africa.

Various Projects:

Room Names and Numbers

Pizza Oven

Spa

"Tree of Life" Lift Pit

Stairwell Panels

SANParks Head Office, Pretoria, South Africa.

Beauty Spa, Kloof, South Africa.

Floor for a Casino Development in San Francisco de Mostazal, Chile.

This project, near Santiago, is 100m² of floor panels. The preparation was all done in the studio. The prepared pieces were then air-freighted to Chile where our team did the installation over a two week period. The team was in Chile from 13 September - 3 October 2008 for the installation.

The team consisted of Jane du Rand, Tamryn Miller, Happiness Dlamini, Sfiso Dlamini, Douglas Ndaba and Paulos Nkabane.

The design concept was big, bright, bold flowers.

Baragwanath Taxi Rank, Johannesburg, South Africa.

The design is made up of both detailed and plain strips. The designs on the detailed strips being of images depicting the goods sold in market places around taxi ranks: plates of fruits and vegetables, hats and bags, clothing and sweets etc.

As this site is currently still under construction, we have been unable to photograph the completed wall without scaffolding and building material surrounding it. As soon as we are able to get these clearer photos we will upload them, however the above photos do give an idea of the scale of the project (70m²) and give insight as to how a project of this size is installed.

Memorial for Bessie Head, Malvern, South Africa.

4th Place winner of the AMAFA KZN Heritage Awards for 2009.

My proposal for the memorial to Bessie Amelia Head was for it to take the form of a “tree seat” using the tree at the entrance to the Werde School.

The tree symbolizes permanence and stability. The tree was made part of the memorial by its relationship to the surrounding seat structure.

One of the most permanent and stable parts of Bessie Head’s history was her time at the (then) St Monica’s Diocesan Home for Coloured Girls and the education she received there which afforded her the ability to produce the work for which she is remembered.

The memorial has been designed as a very solid platform base around the tree, built to a height which would make it a comfortable place to sit.

The tree seat would be clad in stone fired terra cotta ceramic pieces. The terra cotta pieces are angular pointed shapes. The way that they are positioned on the seat tries to convey feelings of determination and struggle, perhaps hardship and an overall feeling of being African.

In contrast, a delicate lace-like cloth (made from glass, mirror and glazed ceramics) with an image of Bessie Head in the centre, is seemingly randomly placed onto the terra cotta seat. The idea is that this ceramic lace “cloth” should look delicate, almost so that it could be blown away in the wind any moment.

To me, even though Bessie Head was in many respects a really strong African woman who produced some amazing work, she was, due to the circumstances of her life, also incredibly fragile and delicate. After reading about Bessie Head, and reading her work one gets the feeling that she could have been “blown away” into oblivion at many different stages of her fraught and difficult life.

I feel that the life of Bessie head was one of contrasts, of polar differences which she battled to come to terms with, of different identities and a feeling of never really belonging to any place or community.

I have tried to portray this in the memorial which strives to represent these differences; strength and fragility, permanence and transience, and at the same time to make it something quite beautiful, peaceful and lasting.

Umhlanga Pier, Umhlanga, South Africa.

Point Spinnaker Properties, Durban, South Africa.

Meropa Casino, Pietersburg, South Africa.

ICC - Red Carpet, Durban, South Africa.

The brief from the client, the eThekwini Municipality, was to create a “welcoming” red carpet leading from the street to the entrance to the building.

It was thought that the entrance to the first phase of the ICC building was too alienating to ordinary people, and an entrance only to be used by VIP’s and dignitaries.

In contrast therefore, the aim for this phase of the ICC was to make the route leading up to the south entrance a red carpet for all the people of the city.

The Red Carpet was designed with a focus on texture and detail with an “African feel”. The intention was that ordinary people could identify with the carpet, and that it would be a welcoming pathway from the street to the entrance of the building.

Garden Court Hotel, Durban, South Africa.

Tongaat, South Africa.

Suncoast Casino and Entertainment World, Durban, South Africa.

Melrose Arch, 450m², Johannesburg, South Africa.

Foyer Columns to the Constitutional Court, Johannesburg, South Africa.

The competition brief for the foyer columns called for an applied decoration to the surface of the 18 slanting columns in the foyer. The space was described as a “forest of columns” . At the time of this competition I felt a special connection to this space having just had my first solo exhibition at the KZNSA Gallery, which coincidently was titled “a forest of columns”.

The theme of this building “Justice Under a Tree” with pillars stretching up towards the ceiling served as an inspiration. This particular foyer space in the building makes reference to the idea of holding court under the shady branches of a tree. I took as my point of departure for the design literal references to actual indigenous South African trees. I used parts of these trees, such as seed pods, thorn shapes and leaf shapes to inform the patterns that were made up in the ceramics and bits of tile.

My initial design proposed to cover all of the square parts of each column and to leave the round parts of the columns in plain concrete. The architects were very concerned that the “concreteness” of the columns should read from the floor through to the ceiling. After discussions with them I spent a morning sitting in the half built space watching the movement of the sun and the wonderful shadows which formed on the columns from the slatted perforated ceiling. I then devised a “system” to deal with the ratio of mosaic and concrete to cover the surfaces of the columns. [I do have diagrams describing this]

The long rectangular perforations in the ceiling cause shadows of different sizes. I therefore divided each rectangular column surface into thirds both vertically and horizontally and played with different configurations. I made sure that the column would read with its concrete connection from the floor to the ceiling.

The design of the columns with some having the rectangular (square plan) on the lower half touching the floor, and some on the higher part of the column touching the ceiling, allowed me to treat some of them as “sky columns” and some as “earth columns”. The patterns on the lower “earth columns”, mostly seed pod and thorn shapes, were all made up in terra cotta, reds, browns and ochre's. The upper “sky” columns, mostly leaf and pod shapes, were made up in grey greens, turquoise and blue greens.

The overall effect I tried to achieve, especially with the grey green sky columns, was that the mosaic decoration should work with the strong pattern of shadows created by the slatted windows and perforated ceiling. It was planned that the decoration would dissolve into the space and have the same kind of “play” on the column that the shadows depict.

In order to make this work, a large team was put together. Each small piece of ceramic was cut out, pressed or molded in clay, fired and glazed. We used all the kilns we could find in Durban to get the many small pieces fired and ready on time. Once all the pieces were made, glazes needed to be experimented with, and colors decided on. We lay all the rectangular strips for each column on tables and on the floor of my studio in Durban. This process took two to three months. All the strips were held together with brown paper and netting and transported to Johannesburg where a team of six people took two weeks of hard work to install the mosaic on the columns.