Paga Designs is an innovative company that designs and manufacturers products to clients specifications. The business has evolved its business into a number of dedicated sections. This is due to the skills our employees have brought to the company; we have acknowledged these skills and offer them to our clients.
Ingrid Baggeröhr has joined Paga Designs as a partner she is an accomplished sculptor and artist.
Mostly interested in sculpting, works can be seen throughout the country at most casino’s, including Sun City, Gold Reef City, Golden Horse Casino and many more.
Her other medium is painting. She is capable of creating the most exquisite murals and ceiling fresco’s
Ingrid Baggeröhr (1958) was born in Pretoria. She matriculated from the Pro Arte School and obtained a BA (Fine Arts) degree from the University of Pretoria. While at university, Ingrid was awarded a New Signatures Merit Award. She started her working life as a sculptor for PACT before joining the SAP as an “all-round artist”.
Ingrid was a member of the SAP for four years before she joined the SADF. “I enjoyed my time with the SAP working on many different projects,” she says, “but the nature of the work imposed some restrictions on my personality as an artist. In addition, the physically demanding tasks of a sculptor were considered by many as men’s work. Even my superiors, experienced with the nature of sculpting could not visualize me, a petite female, handling heavy bronze statues. I really don’t know why I joined the SADF. I worked only a short while for them, but during this time I executed a large statue of a woman for the Cape Coloured Corps, one and a quarter life-size, which is a memorial to the wives of soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice for their country.”
After Ingrid left the SADF, she became an assistant to Herman McDonald, a former SADF artist who had started his own bronze foundry.
“I admire the skills and techniques of Herman, and his tuition no doubt helped me to secure large commissions for the Palace at Sun City after I had left him to go on my own.”
Ingrid considers her work at the Palace as her greatest challenge yet. Some of the work, water features done in concrete and about twenty different indigenous animals such as birds, monkeys, fishes and crocodiles, were less demanding on her intellect; while others proved to be more stimulating. Nonetheless, with only two months in which to create sculptures, it was no mean task. Another challenge Ingrid faced was to make the sculptures for the stage of the Miss World Competition. It was the first time that the world backdrop of a stage consisted of sculptures, and creating four-metre-high high elephant panels and panels of leopards, while interpreting them in a realistic manner, required skill and dedication.
Ingrid finds figurative work and life-size portraits in bonze most stimulating. She admires the work of Vigeland, the Norwegian sculptor, with whom she has had personal contact. Other sculptors who have influenced her are Johan van Heerden and Mike Edwards. “ Johan van Heerden has influenced me because his style is so different from mine. I have studied his style, and this has taught me a lot. Mike Edwards, who manages his own business, was one of my tutors at art school. When I was selected Artist of the Year by the Verwoerdburg Art Association, Mike Edwards presented the prize to me. I consider this as a great honour.”
One of Ingrid’s largest commissions was the sculpting of 300 full-figure horses in bronze; each one done separately and rounded off by hand. She considers sculpting as a decorative form of art to which people can relate. Her own work can be found in private collections throughout South Africa, the United States, Japan and Germany.