The Creative Block

The Creative Block, administered by Spier Arts Trust invites professional artists to participate in this artist career development opportunity.
The project provides a fun platform for experimentation, with many emerging and established artists continuing to participate.

Regular hand-in days take place (Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth) at specified locations. At this time, artists receive blank blocks to transform in the media of their choice for presentation and critique at the next hand-in day.
Artists are encouraged to attend the hand-in day in person. Many are self-taught and it is through the curator’s individual critique – similar to master class feedback – that artists develop further.

When work is accepted by the curator, artists are paid immediately according to the number and size of blocks. The size and associated price of Creative Block artworks are set, regardless of artist tenure or medium. 

Each Creative Block carries a short artist biography on the back. This allows the artists to enjoy significant exposure as these artworks are displayed around the globe, travel to art fairs and are in the collections of private owners, patrons and corporate offices.

We invite you to see how a collection of Creative Blocks displayed together becomes a newly created, single “work” that honestly and sometimes brutally expresses contemporary South African society.

Visit Spier Arts Trust