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Adam Birch is a Cape Town-based sculptor and arborist, whose timber sculptures harness the unique forms and grain patterns of each tree, revealing its essential inner form.
Born in 1976 near Johannesburg, Birch grew up on a large farm in the Cape Winelands, where his love of trees began as a child playing in its forests.
He graduated from the University of Stellenbosch in 2000 with a fine art degree majoring in applied graphics, but always dreamed of becoming a full-time sculptor. An apprenticeship as a tree climber led to his own tree surgery company and a ready supply of raw material. As he worked with the difficult, often dangerous, sections of trees that needed to be removed, he saw sculptural forms emerge and began to design and sculpt sculpture and furniture.
A passionate environmentalist, Birch cuts down only alien tree species and uses indigenous wood only from trees that have already fallen. Once a tree is felled, he takes a trunk-to-twig approach to utilising the timber, sawing it into planks, floor boards, structural beams and firewood until only the fork remains. This is the part of the tree that carpenters usually discard because the dense, twisted grain is difficult to cut. But in a tree’s anatomy, this juncture is a key point determining its stability; it holds a charged energy that he heightens by scooping out sections and further animating others. The natural shape of each piece informs the sculptural approach, and although the end result is refined and sophisticated, the essence of the individual tree is still present.
Birch held his first solo exhibition, Bifurcation, at Southern Guild in 2018, and the gallery has exhibited his work at international design fairs such as Design Miami and The Salon Art + Design in New York. He created more than 150 large-scale timber sculptures for Xigera Safari Lodge in the Okavango Delta. Carved from fallen trees on site, the collection of sensuously curved wishbone-shaped seats, pedestals, benches and side tables is the largest project the sculptor has worked on during his 20-year-long career.
Adam Birch
Cape Town 11 Dec - 18 Mar 2022
Group show
Cape Town 5 Jun - 30 Sept 2015
Group show
Cape Town 24 Nov - 13 Mar 2017
Group show
Cape Town 19 Mar - 30 Jul 2023
Group Show
Cape Town 13 Apr - 15 Jun 2022
Group show
Johannesburg 28 Aug - 5 Oct 2016
Group show
Johannesburg 3 Nov - 31 Jan 2017
Adam Birch
Cape Town 25 Apr - 11 Jul 2018
Group show
Johannesburg 3 Aug - 8 Sept 2012
Group show
Cape Town 29 Oct - 4 Dec 2020