sipho mabona sculpts sugar stained glass window panes

sipho mabona sculpts sugar stained glass panes
‘in search of…’, 2015
sugar, wood, water color, monofilament / 300x300x285 cm
image by driaan claassen

religious imagery meets profane materiality in sipho mabona’s latest work ‘in search of…’. the switzerland-based artist — whose recent work redefined origami with the fold of a life-sized elephant from single paper sheet — this time transforms traditional paper crease patterns into translucent, stained-glass panes, which float in a white frame. reminiscent of church windows, the colorful panels and intricately composed geometries are made from sugar — a material that embodies desire and contemporary pleasures.

the colorful panels and intricately composed geometries are made from sugar
image by hayden phipps

tinted watercolors are mixed with sugar to create a new material that is semi-translucent and fragile at the same time. light passing through the patterns sees the same warm, vibrant glow as you would find in a cathedral, without the mammoth scale. the creates are in-part autobiographical, personal to mabona’s story: ‘colorful as the rainbow nation itself, the floating panes form both a maze and a cross through which the visitor delicately wound their way.’ themba mabona writes of the series. ‘on their journey to the centre, they may have fractured this or that pattern of mabona’s life, crunched across sugary fragments, until they finally reached the source of light. that undefined glow which we all hope for at the centre of our lives. exploring materials other than paper, mabona’s oeuvre experiments with their proprieties and emergent levels of meaning. the works fold around the issues of potential, transformation as well as the ephemeral, all the while trying to explore the poetry of paper.’

mabona transforms traditional paper crease patterns into translucent, stained-glass panes
image by driaan claassen

colorful white creases are infilled with a mixture of sugar and watercolor paint
image by driaan claassen

geometric shapes formed are reminiscent of a stained glass window pane
image by driaan claassen

image by driaan claassen

a detail of the material made by the artist for the series
image by driaan claassen

light shines through the pane, creating a warm glow through the semi-translucent panels
image by driaan claassen

adding the mixture to the spaces between the white frame
image by driaan claassen

image by driaan claassen

carefully applying the sugar / watercolor mixture to the frame
image by driaan claassen

image by driaan claassen