Jean Tiran South African, b. 1979

Born Cape Town 1979, Jean developed an early interest in art and, mentored by his father who was a painter and art school principal, studied painting and sculpture at school and in his spare time. After matriculating in 1997, he travelled Europe, investigating bronze casting and stone working facilities. He returned to South Africa in 2001 and worked for Bronze Age Art Foundry, where he honed his skills in foundry work and was responsible for metal casting and fettling. In 2007, he joined art foundry Kalk Bay Sculpture Studio, and in 2013 became co-owner. Jean creates his own bronze and marble sculptures here in addition to casting work for a small stable of artists.

Jean's body of work is centred on abstract studies of human and animal forms, executed in marble and bronze.

Many of his earlier subjects were male figures; the originals of these bronze sculptures being often modelled directly in softened wax in a deliberately rough, textural way, chunky and tubular shapes suggesting limbs and compact muscles.

In 2004 his focus turned to female figures; elongated and sinuous with smooth surfaces, exaggerated curves, planes and crisp angles. In the past 10 years his has increasingly worked in marble and explored carving animals, many of these sculptures have an ageless and ambiguous quality; totemic forms which seem simultaneously modern and ancient.