MARK HILLTOUT is staging an exhibition, A Celebration of Corrugated Iron, at his studio in Woodstock in February 2020 – it’s a new art form forged in iron. JANE MAYNE visited him in his home-cum-studio.
To many, rusted corrugated iron is a cast away industrial material. In South Africa and other international cities, it’s a reminder of inequality, a political failure. Oblivious, timeless, or simply a means for shelter, it’s bleached by the sun, flayed by wind and rain, scorched by fire and repainted by man – as such, each sheet bears a unique history.
Endlessly complex
To Mark Hilltout, it is all of that. But it is also “endlessly complex and gloriously random; something that time alone can create and no artist can hope to better.”
Mark is creating a visual art medium by using this cast away material and manipulating it in a unique and complex manner. The novel flattening of the wriggly tin casts a new light on the stunning aesthetics of the ancient metal. ”I bang it flat,” says Mark matter-of -factly. “Once you’ve taken out the corrugations it becomes manageable. It becomes a canvas”.
Once a collector of commercial enamel signs, Mark has always been fascinated by scrapyards. “I’ve always been drawn to the discarded. I like imperfection, it’s part of me. Rust and damaged pieces of corrugated iron are just full of it. That’s why corrugated iron is such an exciting medium for designers and architects.”
Mark seeks out and buys discarded sheets from Khayelitsha and neighbouring towns. Out of 100 perhaps only 10 are suitable. The finished pieces are the result of thousands of “happy and unhappy accidents. I look for interesting changes in colour, pattern, texture and grain. But the more I study corrugated iron, the more I realise that the metal itself should dictate the composition of each artwork – that the artist must not get in the way of the medium,” he adds.
A library of iron
At his Woodstock studio the sheets are sorted by hue into a library of iron. Every sheet, no matter its age or colour, is unified by two hues.
The first is the iron itself – a neutral dull-silvery grey colour that occasionally reveals itself where the layers of paint have flaked or chipped off. The second hue is the gnawing of the rust, which comes in a wide range of browns; from warm orange to near black umber – sunset to midnight. When two different sheets of different ages and sources are stitched together, they form a unique and exhilarating surface – a palimpsest in metal.
His take: “No photograph can do justice to the nuances. It must be viewed up close and in person.”
“We are drawn to irregular shapes and patterns, if only to make sense of them. When people look at my work, I hope they will appreciate the beauty of the material that I love.”
You can view his work at his exhibition A Celebration of Corrugated Iron at 6 Ravenscraig Road, Woodstock in Cape Town.
Who: Artist Mark Hilltout
What: Corrugated iron art A Celebration of Corrugated Iron
Where: 6 Ravenscraig Road, Woodstock, Cape Town, South Africa
When: 13 to 16 February 2020, 10am – 6pm
Web: Markhilltout.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mark-Hilltout-107961620704022/
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