Anton Smit

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Born in 1954 in Boksburg, a mining town in the South African Transvaal, Anton Smit has followed a singular, self-taught and passionate artistic path.

From the age of sixteen, he was fully committed to the practice of sculpture, with a determination that led him to win first prize in Pretoria’s prestigious New Signatures Art Competition a decade later.

His work has since been exhibited at the Pretoria Art Museum and has crossed national borders to reach audiences far beyond South Africa.

A spiritual quest

Anton Smit’s art speaks of humanity, of the ties that are woven, that are stretched and distended between people. His sculptures are a call to unity, offering comfort and serenity to sometimes troubled souls

Smit himself describes the philosophy behind his work with subtlety: « I believe that man is a spiritual being having an earthly experience. My work portrays stepping out of the known matrix into the realm of the spirit. » (interview for Aesthetica magazine, 11/13/2013).

Anton Smit’s sculptures are distinguished by their sensitivity to the human condition, transcending the boundaries of reality to explore the essence of being.

His abstract and figurative works, often on a grand scale, embody a complex harmony of forms and emotions ranging from melancholy to exaltation, from pain to jubilation. His faces express the universality of the human experience, holding up a mirror to individual states of mind while celebrating humanity as a whole.

Sculptures in motion

Anton Smit conveys his fascination with metal, which he shapes with meticulous precision, bending and twisting to create organic forms and textures that captivate the eye.
The surfaces of his sculptures seem to come alive, with the play of light and shadow highlighting every detail.

His work includes imposing human figures, nudes, impressive heads, masks, hands, angels, floating and stretched figures, warriors and abstract works, mainly using steel, metal, fibreglass and bronze.

Anton likes to imbue his work with the illusion of movement or gesture, of curled-up bodies or limbs stretched out towards the viewer, of inspiring ‘action figures’ projecting tremendous emotion, a call to movement. Anton Smit’s work evokes a serenity of spirit, a kind of bliss emanating from almost living sculptures.

Stream of Consciousness

Anton Smit intends to work on similarities and the communion of beings, which from his point of view is all corollary, and the three monumental faces in Stream of Consciousness are all facets of the same human world.

The serenity they exude is almost supernatural; the three faces, identical in morphology, express similar yet quite different sensations. These faces also act as a filter for the landscape bathed in light. You can see through them separately, but never better than together.

They are clearly designed to form a community, inviting us to look beyond the superficial and contemplate the sensitive world in which we look every day.