exhibitions

This series of digital prints is from the exhibition, ‘Liminal’, ArtSPACE, Durban [2014], together with fellow artist Veronica Peano. They have been worked further in various mixed media, pastel, oil and ink. A liminal space or state can only exist by acknowledging there is something either side of it.

Accompanying the prints were a set of perspex boxes containing shoes. The pieces evolved from a discussion of the quote by the philosopher Heidegger, who defined ‘Nothing’ as the complete negation of the totality of what is. ‘The complete negation of Being.’ Collaborating with Thomas Konrad, the outer layers were engraved with quotations from the people who had walked in the shoes. The focus was on their thoughts about life and their particular experience of existence and the notion of potentially not ever having existed. So that this life becomes the liminal space between potential ‘existence’ prior to it and possible ‘existence’ after it.

This series of collages are from the exhibition, ‘Recalculating‘, ArtSPACE Durban [2015], together with fellow artist Megan Bonnetard. They reflect on our journey through life, bringing us to this point in time. There are many paths that show themselves to us to follow, and we don’t always continue on the route that we embarked on and so the journey becomes an adventure.

The sample of etchings and artist books above were part of an exhibition, “Quiet please! Democracy in Progress”, at artSPACE, Durban [2013]. The theme was exploring the power of words. The language of power, contrasting the current ruling party with the characters in the dystopian novel, ‘Animal farm’.

Chrysalis (Chrysalis) 2017 was part of an exhibition in the ICC in Durban in collaboration with our sister city of New Orleans. The sculpture has a base and a vertical support with outward protruding sections to roughly suggest the shape of a female torso made of various layers of collaged papers. These are spread open resembling the wings of a butterfly. The butterfly metaphor represents the idea that during a festival like Mardi Gras we take on an outer colourful form, that overshadows and briefly hides our inner self. We are for a fleeting moment, light and free from society and our roles and expctations within it. The images from women’s magazines used, speak to the influence these have over the identity girls and women form of themselves. The sections vary in their weight and translucency, so the layers become symbolic of the complex nature of woman-human-female.

Only Passing Through (2018). Mixed media, thread, string, ink, pencil, collage] 1000 x 1600mm. A Thread Runs Through It, Hermanus Fynarts

Constructed from strips of collaged, mixed media drawings, this piece was stitched by hand and machine with various threads and string. Tonal graduation from light, innocent nature progresses to dark, forboding man made structures at the bottom. I worked in a dialogue with textile artist, Odette Tocksdorff.