BMW Individual x 7 Series - Ellerman House

Artist Statement:

When Ellerman house first approached me with the idea to individualize a BMW series 7, in October 2018, I was both excited and awed at the prospect. I knew right from the start that I wanted the vehicle to somehow represent the landscape on which Ellerman House stands; the physicality of the mountainside and the ephemeral beauty of the flora. The richness of the Cape Floral Kingdom has long been my muse and I wanted to portray a sense of its diversity and abundance in the BMW.

There were two different aspects to consider: the colors of the car and the botanical castings I would use. And then there was the question of the interplay between these facets. I envisioned a ‘traveling library’, and my research led me from hikes in the mountains of the Cape Peninsula, to dusty old bookshops, where I pored over ancient botanical journals and historical accounts of the early botanists of the Cape.

On a trip to Munich, Germany, to visit BMW headquarters with Paul Harris, of Ellerman House, our ideas for the colors of the car coalesced: the hardy green of the fynbos, the rain-washed browns of Table Mountain sandstone and the blacks of the shadows and recesses of the secret places on the mountaintops.

To portray the abundance of the plants surrounding Ellerman House, I decided to inlay the panels of the BMW with castings from 32 species of fynbos. There would be five panels. Each door would have a panel and so too would the dashboard. To translate my three-dimensional botanical castings onto a two-dimensional surface, I collaborated with master cabinet maker and luthier, Colin Rock, of Colin Rock Atelier. His knowledge and skill with inlay work was vital to the production process.

My first step was the actual harvesting of the 32 plant cuttings, which were collected from a tract of land on the Cape Peninsula, Baskloof Private Fynbos Nature Reserve, where I have special permission from Ivan and Danielle Harris to harvest. The second step was to make molds from the cuttings, which were then baked in my kiln in my studio, and cast in bronze. Once the bronze plant specimens had been cleaned, Colin and I flattened the pieces, fettling and using grinding tools, so that they’d be thin enough to be inlaid into the panels.

The process of inlaying the bronze plant specimens was one which was experimental and a learning curve for myself, and I could not have done it without Colin’s knowledge and experience guiding us. The final part of the production process was the polishing of the panels, a step in which only elbow grease mattered.

The final fitting of the car took place in Germany, and the Ellerman House bespoke BMW was launched in November 2020, where I saw it complete for the first time. I was delighted to see my concepts come together and feel that BMW, Colin and I had together created a luxury vehicle that speaks of the geography of Table Mountain: the amber of the sandstone and grey of the granite, the greens of the windswept fynbos, the blacks of the shadows on the mountain, and the inlaid bronze castings depicting the abundance and diversity of the fynbos of the Cape Peninsula.

Nic Bladen

2021

BMW x ELLERMAN HOUSE - VIDEO SERIES

Episode 1 - A Fyn Concept

Episode 2 - A Blank Canvas

Episode 3 - The Harvest

Episode 4 - Trial & Error

Episode 5 - Making of a Masterpiece

Episode 6 - The Reveal