An Interview with Adele Naidoo
Growing up in South Africa with an artist father, I was surrounded by creativity and nature, inspiring my passion for art and design. I completed a Diploma in Interior Design while working as a Reggio Emilia Early Years Art Teacher. Represented early in my art career by Greenhouse Interiors, I later moved to Shanghai (2019–2021) as an Art Director at an International Kindergarten across two campuses. Shanghai is where I became an independent artist where my signature floral compositions were born. My husband and I came back to Perth, Australia and started working full time on our emerging art brand.
From early floral acrylic paintings on canvas my art has evolved, in collaboration with my husband Jayd over the years into an abstract expression of floral formation and structure. Jayd’s architectural background with Adele’s love of flowers provides the inspiration behind their sculptural pieces.
We wanted to manipulate a rigid material and make it appear fluid, reminiscent of the curves and movement of flowers. Each fold in the sculpture was meticulously thought about but we wanted each hand made sculpture to look effortless. We are so happy with the end result - my once hand painted flowers, re-imagined with a contemporary spin.
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Can you talk us through your favourite piece from this collection?
What I have found rewarding moving into a sculptural direction is finding our own voice amongst the many other artists using this medium internationally and in Australia. I love that we are continually evolving and being creative as we find new ways to explore this medium that has been around for decades.
Experimenting with sculptural form allowed my husband and I to purely let movement be showcased, stripping everything else away. I love the simplicity and effortless look but creating our sculptures is a very deliberate process, we are very aware of every fold and the balance we have to create with pieces to make each flow.
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Can you tell me a bit about yourself?
I have always been fascinated by colour and interior styling, how a space can instantly transform your mood and evoke different feelings. I have called four countries home so far, South Africa, New Zealand, Shanghai and Australia. Travelling to third world countries in my teens has instilled an appreciation for culture and kindness to people in need. I am a mother of two boys, I married my husband at 21 and we have tried our hand at many creative outlets together over the years. I am so grateful that we are now able to work together on our sculptures and forge a new direction for our brand and our personal creative journey
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Where do you draw inspiration from?
Flowers will forever be my muse, their form, curves, colour, their eminent beauty, how they evolve, grow, withstand environmental factors and bloom. I also love interiors, fashion and colour blocking, my sculptures give reference to these
Can you take us through your journey into making your artworks?
From 2018 large scale , heavy textured floral paintings was my signature style, over the years - as artists do - it’s only a natural progression to evolve. I looked at the colour blocking and thick brush strokes that made up petals in each of my painted flowers. I wanted to magnify these thick brushstrokes and in 2023 my highly textured abstract collection was born. From a natural extension of constant exploration in this new abstract direction, I wanted to create even more textured artworks and went onto experimenting with clay sculptures.
Having clay be so fragile when working with it at a larger scale I had the idea to created large scale prints of my smaller clay sculptures but the idea was always to create large scale 3D sculptures just as my large scale floral work has always been throughout the years. Over the course of a year I worked with my husband Jayd to explore larger 3D sculptures. Jayd's architectural background with my love of flowers provided the inspiration behind our 3D large scale exploration.
We experimented with a variety of materials which was a very long and painful journey as the materials we worked with were so fragile and then we both remembered working PMMA in our intermediate school in Auckland, NZ.
I remember thermoforming this material for a project. I must have been 12 and I still remember being so fascinated by how you could manipulate a once solid material!
I can't believe it took us all these years to revisit it but so happy we decided to move away from clay with our sculptures. We experimented with our first sheet and we were able to hand manipulate it. We drew reference to our large scale sculptural prints and over a few months honed in on all the skills we learnt with this new material and created our signature designs you see today.
What is your favourite En Gold piece?
The Miro Coffee Table holds a special place for me, it was our very first home purchase. I’ve always admired En Gold’s considered craftsmanship, and to now have my own sculptures gracing their gallery walls feels like a full circle moment. It's truly a dream come true.
