EAST RIFT VALLEY LAND ART INITIATIVE- TAIWAN
” Eroded Illusionistic Space ” – Taiwan 2025
TAIWAN LAND ART INITIATIVE
“ Before me floats an image
man, or shade, Shade more than man
More image than a shade “
– W.B Yates
South African sculptor Anton Smit has just returned from Taiwan, where he was one of ten global artists invited to create for the East Rift Valley Land Art Initiative.
His monumental sculpture, Eroded Illusionistic Space is a steel meditation on the theme of man and nature – drawing on the rice fields, towering mountains, and spiritual essence of the land as inspiration.
Working with local art students from the University of Art and Technology in Taitung, Smit brought this vision to life in just two weeks. The piece is a “silent bridge” between worlds – rooted in the soil, yet reaching toward transcendence.
Anton Smit, Taiwan 2025
Concept of the artwork
“ My main objective was to create a sculpture people could relate to,
considered the beautiful landscape of Luye, framed by mountains and surrounded by rice fields, I tried to symbolize and mimic these colours. “
Subtle colours represent the mountains which are contrasted by the yellow-green steel vertical structures, which represent the rice fields in harmonious play
between subtle and bold.
The cut segments, allows the landscape to become part of the artwork and
symbolizes the interconnectedness of humans and nature and our fundamental oneness with nature.
We all are spiritual beings having earthly experience…
“Eroded Illusionistic Space” embodies our oneness with the natural world, our resilience, and our creative calling in service of something greater.
Sculpture Installed 3 July 2025
Title of Work: ERODED ILLUSIONISTIC SPACE
Materials Used: Fiberglass, epoxy resin, sand, paint, iron
Size: Height 450, Width 430, Depth 100 cm
The Creative Process
Press Release event with the mayor of Taitung
Location of Installation Site
955, Taiwan, Taitung County, Luye Township
To Find out more | Commission a Sculpture, kindly email: info@antonsmit.co.za
Enquire about a Sculpture
VIEW MORE OF ANTON SMIT LARGE SCALE SCULPTURES HERE
Born in Boksburg in August 1954, Anton entered his first sculpting exhibition at the age of sixteen and won first prize. Following successful exhibitions in White River, Nelspruit, Pretoria and Cape Town, Smit turned to sculpting full-time.
In 1990, international recognition came in the form of exhibitions in Rome and Milan, an invitation to exhibit in New York and Hong Kong, as well as a return exhibition in Italy in 1993. More exhibitions followed in Bonn, Washington, Singapore and Koln.
His body of work comprises towering human figures, nudes, heads, masks, hands, angels, floating and stretching figures, warriors, as well as abstract works, sculpted out of steel, metal, stone and a unique iron and polymer cast mixture, as well as bronze.
Anton’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Pretoria Art Museum, Rupert Museum, Graff/Delaire Collection, University of Pretoria Museums , Century City Art Foundation.
About Anton Smit Sculptures
Address: Black Eagle Lane, Aqua Vista Mountain Estate, Bronkhorstspruit dam, 1020
South Africa