Jake Michael Singer (b. 1991) experiments with a broad range of disciplines from photography to works on paper, and commands an exquisite mastery of sculpture. Drawing inspiration from the emergent behaviour of flocking birds, where the individual is subsumed in the whole; and meditating on the timeless monumentality of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, his Murmurations series speaks to our time. Meticulously constructed, using up to sixteen thousand meters of marine grade stainless steel for a single sculpture, the Murmurations series establishes his position as one of the leading young sculptors from Africa.
Singer completed his bachelor’s at Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2013, after deepening his learning over the course of 2012 at Central Saint Martins in London. He was recognised by the Eduardo Villa Foundation Grant both in 2016 and 2017, the youngest sculptor yet awarded this. His work features in private collections in South Africa, Germany, Greece, Canada, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and he has further completed two large-scale public sculptures in Johannesburg: Dawn Chorus, part of the RMB Collection in the Think Precinct, and Roarke’s Evacuation Plan, a landmark on the Jo’burg skyline. In 2020, he launched the Emergence Art Prize with THK Gallery, which was supported by RMB. His work has been exhibited at Zeitz MOCAA, and his large installation And all the Birds Flew with a Harsh Scream (Marmara), 2020, was featured in Iziko Museum’s most recent exhibition Matereality. It is now currently on exhibition at the Norval Foundation. In October 2021, Singer completed Bennu Stassis, a site-specific installation in a former Hamman in Istanbul dating from 1477.