Southern Guild presents a solo by designer Gregor Jenkin is widely lauded as one of South Africa’s foremost designers. A self-proclaimed ‘maker of things’, his interest in engineering, intervention and re-imagining has shaped unique and storied pieces and a pared down vernacular that is at once nostalgic and highly contemporary.

His solo show at the Southern Guild Silo gallery in Cape Town promises a broad spectrum of work that will provide visitors with a snapshot of his studio as it is today. New work inspired by the incidental shapes of heritage steel salvaged from the Silo district will be shown alongside well-known furniture and subtly adjusted Jenkin’s classics. ‘The furniture you recognize will have some sort of nuance’, says Gregor. ‘There’ll be a subtlety that people who know my work will understand and people who don’t know my work will be interested in.’

The simplicity, beauty and range of Gregor’s work is the result of a thoughtful, steadfastly lo-tech process that is part engineering, part sculpture. ‘His focus on form combined with the depth of his narratives gives the work a quality that transcends definition,’ says COO of Southern Guild Julian McGowan.