Werner Bronkhorst’s IWC Has a Rocket, an F1 Car and the Little Prince Inside

Artist Werner Bronkhorst builds his canvases up with acrylic gel, volcanic ash and marble dust, then paints miniature figures onto the textured surface: skiers crossing sculptural mountains, swimmers drifting through blue. Born in Pretoria in 2001 and now based in Sydney, he has carried that style into sport and motorsport through a run of brand collaborations.

His first official project with Porsche, "Buckle Up, Buttercup," a charcoal and acrylic drawing of the 911 S/T, hung on the main wall of the Porsche Pavilion at the 2024 Australian Grand Prix and sold at auction for about $18,800, with the proceeds going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. In 2025 the World Aquatics Foundation auctioned his "Fish in Water," a top-down view of a competition pool, and Lando Norris unveiled "Art in Motion," a hand-painted 3D helmet made with Bronkhorst, in Las Vegas for his 150th Grand Prix start.

His latest commission is "Engineering Dreams," a one-off work for IWC Schaffhausen. It was shown in Berlin at "HIGH," his exhibition at the Atrium Tower at Potsdamer Platz, October 2 to 4, and will become a permanent installation in IWC's Miami flagship, which the brand says will reopen in spring 2027. Crown & Caliber’s Editor-in-Chief caught up with Bronkhorst via zoom in his Sydney studio to talk watches, space, and all his favorite shades of blue. 

Crown & Caliber: Tell me about "Engineering Dreams." IWC commissioned it, and you've said this body of work is inspired by the energy, excitement, and exhilaration of the sky. What does that mean to you?

Werner Bronkhorst: The skies, I think, for everyone in humanity have been something that we've stared at and kind of been in awe of, and the same happened for me since the day I first had the concept of what the sky is. I used to dream of being a pilot. I used to dream of going to space. It was always this urge and ambition to learn about the stars and the world beyond our planet, but for me having this project specifically, not only with IWC's rich history and integration into space and aviation and dreaming, I think that was the greatest type of collaboration I could have had for a collection that is all about the sky and all about the ambition of creating something out of nothing. Because air, you can't touch, you can't feel it, and yet these paintings have become hypertextural.

C&C: The piece imagines space exploration, aviation, and motorsport sharing the same horizon. Talk me through how you began.

WB: There's definitely a very strict method to my madness. I have, even now, you are in my logbook because I keep track of the time I start everything, including every process of an artwork. It starts with an idea, just like anything and especially with watchmaking, you have an idea to create a specific object, an item that is practical and beautiful. And for me, that's the exact same: the idea of creating an artwork that celebrated IWC's rich history and integration with aviation but that then revolves around what color am I using? What composition am I using? What kind of textural lines am I working with? How big is the canvas? And there were many ideas that I proposed, and many ideas that IWC wanted to include. That was part of their “brief.” In the end, it comes down to keeping track of what colors I want to use, how am I going to use those colors, and then just starting. That's the important part. Planning and having the designs and having the ideas are all great, but there comes a day when you have to start, and with these paintings, they take weeks to create just because of how long drying times require, and also the detail in the figures. So it all starts with the planning and the engineering and the dreaming, and then making that a reality.

C&C: Since you track your time so closely, walk me through this painting. When did you start, and how long did it take?

WB: The discussion has been months in the making. I started in mid-July heading into August, and basically for the whole of August, that's when I physically painted the piece. In this artwork, you can see 11 different shades of blue. Each of them have to be mixed individually in a four liter bucket, they get mixed and then applied to the canvas in these strokes. And in the case of this artwork, it was a very curved, almost hemisphere type composition. They are curved from the bottom left diagonally to the top right, and this creates the sensation that you're looking at Earth, but almost at the edge of Earth, just into the blue transition of the different atmospheres and exospheres and mesospheres and stratospheres, and deep space, and all of the colors signify exactly that: this transition of blues and this transition into deep space from Earth, and that's why you will find that once all of that paint's dried, which can take weeks, then that's when I actually painted the fine detailed figures. First you have Mercedes-Benz AMG Petronas Formula One team, and that tiny little car of Kimi is painted with such fine detail in such a small scale, where once again the idea of precision and actual craft and time taken to make just that figure, and it's not just that one.

We have the Top Gun jet that's flying through, and you can even see all of the air around it because it's breaking through the sound barrier, and then you have the Falcon Nine rocket that is flying out into space. And once you reach space, you have this tiny little Vast Haven One station, and I think that's probably my favorite just because of the sheer amount of detail, you can see the reflection of Earth on the metal. You can see all of the solar panels. It's a phenomenal tiny piece, and of course, it ends off in deep space with the "Le Petit Prince", which I think was the fan favorite. Everyone just took photos of that specific tiny miniature.

C&C: Watch enthusiasts always love talking about time. Do you experience time differently when you're painting than you do with, say, your family?

WB: The time with kids and balancing time between work and life, and of course time in studio, it all exists to me, but they're all so different because it feels like, especially when I'm painting, time kind of just disappears. And even though I keep strict track of time, it's not like I'm necessarily feeling rushed to create or like I'm trying to finish an artwork within a certain time. It's really just a pure kind of reflection of what I do, rather than an intentional one. Time, to me, is very important in my work. Not only because I realize that if I'm the only person who can paint my work, then the only way my artworks are going to get finished is if I'm painting and if I spend time in the studio. The only way for me to be a good dad is if I'm spending time with my kids, learning about them, trying to teach them about the world, and so on and so forth.

I've always had this sensation of trying to deal with the bold arrow of time, how it passes, why it passes, fact that things can be, you know, in one country it could be 5 a.m. and in another country it could be 5 p.m. Just dealing with the concept of time and how our feeling and experience of time changes, and then relating that to art because art is also kind of super subjective, whilst being objective. It's super kind of broad and difficult to understand, and yet we can make sense of it. And I think that's exactly what we try and do, even with a watch. You try and make physical and visual what is otherwise so abstract. Anyway, point is, I love time. I love talking about it as well. So yes, we can get into the deep, deep devil details.

C&C: Let's talk watches. Walk me through your IWC collection. Why did you buy your first one?

WB: I love watches in general, and I have since I was a kid. But it's only recently, in the past few years, that I've been able to afford fine watches, and especially Swiss watches. So, I definitely have a solid collection of beautiful timepieces that have been created, you know, by the same company that is owned or that owns IWC. I love Richemont watches, but especially when it comes to IWC, my my goal and my the reason why I first purchased an IWC is not only that I knew I wanted to work with a German watchmaking brand that will therefore aid in the support of my German exhibition, but also a brand that really delves into the detail of time and engineering as well as space exploration and pushing things beyond just the normal kind of watch sales, if I could say that. That's the exact same process I have to take into account with my art. You know, I'm not just selling an artwork; it has a story, it has meaning, and it has a legacy from here on forth as well.

C&C: What was your first IWC, and what was the occasion?

WB: I bought my first Portofino watch because I had a little stopover in Portugal, and I was on my way to Amsterdam to go to Singapore to go to Sydney, and I knew that I just wanted to celebrate having just finished painting a Porsche at Porsche for a whole week. I just wanted to celebrate that moment because I think everyone who buys a fancy watch wants to buy it for a reason that they want to celebrate not only what passed but also what's coming. So I bought that first watch, and I loved it: the beauty and the kind of elegance inside the craft of the watch, the watch face, the tiny hands, the way that it sounds, the way that it ticks, the way that the arms move when you twist the crown or when you change a time zone, the leather, the color of the leather, the feeling of the leather, just every single detail to me was so perfect, and that watch especially wasn't necessarily the absolute most expensive watch.

C&C: Why does that matter to you?

WB: A company like IWC really cares about every single model that they have, even a watch like a Portofino. And so I got really interested in IWC specifically, and that's also when the collaboration with them and the partnership with them started because the conversation started because I genuinely was just interested in them, and yes, now I'm lucky enough to have worn multiple IWCs and I have acquired an eternal calendar, which I'm really excited about because that is of course kind of the epitome of timekeeping, something that is eternal and can exist for longer than I can. So that's also the watch that I'm also very keen to wear once it's finished being made because of course that also takes time to do.

C&C: When did you buy the Portofino?

WB: So that was in April of this year.

C&C: Oh, so it's new for you. What color is the dial?

WB: So the face itself has a more champagne kind of glittery color, and then the strap is blue. But we got the blue in there. Other than that, my dream other watch. I love all their Portugiesers and I love the pilots' watches as well, and the "Ingenieur," but I think my favorite is definitely just the Portofino for how elegant and simple it is.