Exhibition Details

Objects With Narratives is pleased to announce the exhibition Implemente IV, featuring new hand-forged sculptures by Conrad Hicks, a renowned artist, blacksmith and toolmaker from Cape Town.
In the show, Hicks explores the mystical, symbolic and anthropological dimensions of blacksmithing. He focuses on revealing the creative process as both an ancient craft and a contemporary form of inquiry. Central to the exhibition is the dynamic interplay between masculine and feminine forces, expressed through the fundamental properties of the metal itself.
Iron, traditionally associated with Mars, embodies structure, strength and rigidity. Copper, associated with Venus, is luminous, malleable and ethereal. Through his distinctive forging technique, Hicks explores the coexistence of these materials: steel provides structure and order, while copper provides fluidity and softness. Their interdependence becomes a metaphor for human relationships, the balance between tension and harmony, and the point of contact between the earthly and the immaterial.
The works in this collection reflect the universal principles governing matter, craftsmanship and connections. Each sculpture is a contemporary artifact, referring to humanity's earliest traditions of toolmaking—when fire, iron and imagination first shaped the world of our ancestors. Each strike of the hammer becomes a conversation with the distant past and each fold in the metal is a record of that exchange.
Implemente IV is both a tribute to the ancient craft of blacksmithing and a testament to its enduring relevance as a language of form, function and myth.
Hicks approaches sculpture as an explorer of human evolution, seeing in his creative process an echo of our earliest intuitions.  Each strike of the hammer becomes a conversation with deep time and each undulation of the metal is a record of that exchange. His sculptures function simultaneously as tools and talismans, objects that carry both functional heritage and symbolic meaning, encoding the cultural and existential weight of creation itself.
The physical intensity of his process leaves visible traces—marks, rhythms and organic surfaces that seem to be pulsing with primal vitality. Rejecting mechanised welding, he relies on time-tested methods of hand joining, believing that the labour and presence of the maker must be directly invested in the object. In this way, each work becomes a vessel for the body that created it, containing within itself a tangible trace of human effort and experience.
Implemente IV invites viewers to experience the alchemy that transforms raw metal into objects that resonate with both ancient traditions and contemporary sensibilities. Hicks draws on the silent language of metal to remind us of the sacred bond between human hands and the world we form. This solo show is a culmination of Hicks’ lifelong exploration of beauty, form and function.