My name is Jonathan Parkinson, and I grew up in Sussex England.

Africa is the most amazing continent, and I always felt I was destined to come here. The wide open spaces, and the wildlife is mesmerizing, and it is a privilege to be able to honour these animals by capturing them in bronze. To be able to use this medium in a similar way to using a camera, immortalising a moment in time, is a process I love.

I came to South Africa in 1983, and embarked on a career in film. with sculpting emerging as a passion at the turn of the century as I spent more and more time in the African bush.

I cast my early work in the Bronze Age foundry in Simonstown in 2000 and exhibited there, but even though it introduced me to the medium of three dimensional art, I approached it more as a hobby, (due to my film making career) and so it naturally moved into the background.

Almost twenty years later, in 2019 I was commissioned to make my largest bronze yet - the ‘standing wildebeest’, and decided that if I were to start sculpting again, then I must do so in ernest, and produce a portfolio of limited edition bronzes, with a view to exhibiting.

In early 2020 Covid hit, and it decimated many industries, including the film industry, but it turned out to be a perfect catalyst for me to pivot, put my head down and concentrate on creating a large body of work. I created 25 bronzes throughout 2020 and realised that my passion for sculpting had never really left me.

I felt that I had evolved since those early days in Simonstown, and that my bronzes were gaining more power. That is what I strive for - not the detail, but the character and the movement. If you can look at one of these bronzes and feel the animal behind the cold metal, then I have done what I set out to do.

My future as a sculptor? To find my step, and loosen my style. I feel I haven’t even begun, and with so much limitless subject matter, I feel continuously inspired by more and more interactions with the African bush. Challenge is my thing, which is why I am hungry for life-size commissions.

This has started to happen, and my aim now is to treat these bronzes as maquettes of life-sized sculptures.

Give me a challenge, and I’ll rise to it.