Part art, part lighting, part mystery, willowlamp’s products conjure a sense of the extraordinary. This art piece, spectacular wall-mounted chandelier entitled Southern Flame, was commissioned by South Africa’s top platform for collectible design, Southern Guild, for its 10th-anniversary showcase, “Extra Ordinary”.
For “Extra Ordinary”, Southern Guild challenged artist-designers to expand their resources, crossing into other mediums, disciplines, tools and technologies. Hoets seized the opportunity to develop a daring interpretation of a wall sconce that upends the concept of both the traditional chandelier and wall-mounted lighting.
“This piece is primarily a work of art rather than a chandelier or a light installation,” says Hoets. The concept stemmed from a challenge issued by Southern Guild co-founder Julian McGowan. “He challenged me to design a chandelier that totally turned the idea of a chandelier on its head. Something about the idea struck a chord and my mind could not let go of it.”
Southern Flame is a monumental art piece that draws on a range of artistic influences. These include Surrealism, pure geometry and Mandala motifs, which are found throughout the willowlamp collections. The Mandala includes forms derived from a combination of Islamic patterns and pure geometry, and is a source of inspiration for Hoets.
The result is a complex and multi-faceted wall-mounted design that stretches from floor to ceiling. Southern Flame seems to both rise like a fire, Hoets explains, and “melt down onto the floor like the clocks in Salvador Dali’s Surrealist paintings…I imagined it as a crystalline portal from another dimension.”