Todd Merrill Studio is pleased to present the work of artist Charles Haupt an industrial designer based in Cape Town, South Africa. After graduating Cape Peninsula University of Technology in 2001 for industrial design, he would go on to be part of the design team at Bronze Age, a design studio that uses both modern fabrication and traditional bronze sculpture-casting techniques. Here he explores different processes, often manipulating found objects that result in organic, abstract forms formed from once factory produced objects. Haupt has stated “I’m a great lover of functional design, yet also have a lot of respect for sculptural art. So, I decided to combine the two.’’ Coming from a background in product design, Haupt’s interests evolved from a traditional figurative influence into the realm of abstract, always looking for the underlying geometry in the chaos that is nature.  Blending both art and design, Haupt’s limited-edition pieces take influence from Cape Town’s blurring line between urban developments and nature, industrial and organic forms.