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At one of Hermanus’s best-known whale-watching spots, an outdoor sculpture exhibition gives visitors another reason to pause, look closely and walk a little farther along the cliffs.
Visitors usually arrive at Gearing’s Point looking towards the sea. The elevated lookout offers broad views across Walker Bay and has long been one of Hermanus’s favourite places to search for the first splash, fin or tail of a southern right whale. But the sculptures installed across the Point in June 2026 encourage visitors to turn around, look down and reconsider the familiar landscape.
This is Sculpture on the Cliffs, the annual outdoor exhibition presented by Hermanus FynArts. Curated in 2026 by land artist Strijdom van der Merwe, the exhibition brings contemporary sculpture out of the gallery and places it directly in the wind, sun and salt air.
There is no entrance desk and no prescribed route. The works are distributed across the paved lookout and surrounding grass, close to the Old Harbour and the beginning of the Cliff Path. Visitors can move between them at their own pace, pausing as often for the view as for the art.
A gallery without walls
The setting changes how the sculptures are experienced.
Against a conventional white wall, visitors might concentrate on a work’s material, technique and meaning. At Gearing’s Point, every sculpture competes and collaborates with the scale of Walker Bay.
Clouds move across the mountains. Whales may surface beyond the wall. People stop to take photographs, children run between the open spaces and seabirds pass overhead. As the sun shifts, shadows lengthen across the paving and previously unnoticed details become visible.
The exhibition has been part of Hermanus FynArts since 2014. The 2026 selection deliberately stretches conventional ideas about sculpture, bringing together established artists, academics, architects, calligraphers and craftspeople. Their works employ bronze, wood, stone, concrete, metal and found objects.
Tied together
One of the most immediately recognisable works is Francois van Reenen’s Love Knot.
Two dark figures stand side by side, facing the ocean. One wears a rounded hat while the other has a smooth, uncovered head. Their impossibly long necks twist upwards, loop around one another and end with their heads suspended above the opposite bodies.
Made with enamel over an epoxy-fibre system, the sculpture is playful from a distance and more complicated when viewed closely. The pair are separate, yet physically entangled. Their looping necks suggest intimacy, dependence and the sometimes impossible knots created by human relationships.
Positioned with their backs to the town and their faces towards the water, they also resemble two visitors quietly sharing the view.
Hares, hands and human forms
Nearby, a tall bronze hare appears to stride across two black blocks. Its long limbs and upright posture make it look almost human—confident, purposeful and slightly theatrical.
The hare is characteristic of Guy du Toit’s work, which uses these gender- and race-neutral animal figures to reflect human behaviour. Humour is part of the appeal, but so are vulnerability, resilience and the stories we project onto a body caught in motion.
Another dark sculpture reduces the human form to a hand or foot-like shape balanced on a high pedestal. Seen from different angles, it can appear to reach, step forward or hold itself against the wind. Its ambiguity slows the viewer down: what seems obvious from one side becomes something else after a few steps.
A tall wooden construction offers a different experience. Its joined curves and upright sections suggest both a figure and an oversized character from an unfamiliar alphabet. Bolts and dark metal fittings remain visible, drawing attention to how it was assembled.
Elsewhere, gabion-like walls filled with local stone are arranged around a cluster of narrow vertical bars. Part sculpture, part enclosure and part place of contemplation, the work invites the visitor to think about confinement, memory and the uneasy boundary between being inside and outside.
Colour against the cliffs
Not every work blends quietly into the coastal palette.
A brightly painted stacked figure stands out in red, orange, blue, green and yellow. Words and symbols are worked into its textured surface, including “Afrika Nation”. Against the grey rocks and blue water, it is impossible to overlook.
Behind it, a metal formation resembling a swirling school of fish rises above a narrow base. The fish seem to circle together in a current, turning a solid material into something that appears light and mobile.
These works gain something from their position beside the ocean. Fish made from metal echo the life moving unseen beneath the water, while the boldly coloured figure introduces questions of African identity and belonging into one of Hermanus’s most photographed public spaces.
The exhibition includes further works by Erhardt Thiel, Heleen de Haas, Herman van Nazareth, Jaco Sieberhagen, Jacques and Lee Buys, Johann Slee, Ugandan artist Kirumira Namubiru, Willie Bester, Marieke Prinsloo-Rowe and curator Strijdom van der Merwe.
Among them is Prinsloo-Rowe’s Riding out the Storm, a female figure recalling the carved figurehead of an old ship. Exposed to the changing weather at Gearing’s Point, its title feels particularly appropriate.
Look beyond the photograph
The sculptures are easy to treat as unusual backdrops for holiday pictures—and several are undeniably photogenic. But visitors will get more from the exhibition by walking around each work and reading the accompanying plaque.
Some pieces change completely when seen from the opposite side. Others cast shadows that form part of the work. Materials that appear smooth from a distance reveal tool marks, joins, corrosion and texture when approached more closely.
The sea also changes the encounter. A work seen against bright blue water can feel entirely different beneath low winter cloud. This is public art shaped not only by the artists but by the weather, light and movement around it.
Gearing’s Point was once a lookout from which families watched fishing boats return to the Old Harbour. Today, people gather there to watch whales. The sculptures add another layer to that history of waiting and looking.
They give tourists a reason to pause between the Waterfront and Cliff Path—and perhaps to look at Hermanus from a different angle.
Plan your visit
Where: Gearing’s Point, beside the Hermanus Waterfront and Old Harbour.
Cost: Free.
When to go: The sculptures are outdoors and can be viewed throughout the day. Morning and late-afternoon light are particularly good for photographs. Whale season may add the possibility of sightings across Walker Bay.
Allow: About 30 to 45 minutes for the sculptures, or longer if combining them with the Old Harbour and Cliff Path.
Parking: Parking is available at Gearing’s Point, although it can fill quickly during weekends, holidays and whale season.
Accessibility: Much of the exhibition is positioned around the paved lookout, making several works accessible to visitors with limited mobility.
Take along: A hat, sunscreen and a windproof layer. Conditions at the Point can change quickly.
Remember: Do not touch or climb on the sculptures. Read the plaques for the title, artist, materials and background to each work.
Extend the outing: Continue along the Cliff Path, visit the Old Harbour Museum or stop at one of the restaurants and cafés around the Waterfront.
At Gearing’s Point, visitors come for the sweeping views and the chance to spot whales—but the 2026 Sculpture on the Cliffs exhibition offers another reason to linger. Spread across the waterfront, the works transform one of Hermanus’s best-known lookouts into a free open-air gallery shaped by sea, wind and changing light.
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- Wide view of the Sculpture on the Cliffs exhibition at Gearing’s Point, with two black figures joined by looping necks in the foreground and Walker Bay behind them.
- Plaque identifying Francois van Reenen’s sculpture Love Knot, made with enamel over an epoxy-fibre system.
- Outdoor sculpture composed of low, stone-filled wire structures and tall vertical metal bars beside the paved lookout at Gearing’s Point.
- Tall bronze hare walking across two black blocks, with a visitor, the Hermanus coastline and mountains in the background.
- Upright wooden sculpture with curved sections and visible metal fastenings, displayed against a view of Walker Bay.
- Dark hand-like sculptural form mounted on a tall black pedestal near the Gearing’s Point parking area.
