Kalk Bay Modern

Sculpture & Ceramics Exhibition

2011-07-29T07:50:00.000-07:00

From 15 June to 15 July, Kalk Bay Modern hosted an exciting exhibition of sculpture and ceramics by local and national artists. Some of the featured artists include Wilma Cruise with her bronze sculpture of a rider atop a horse along with some of her "woodfired" babies. Local sculptor, Etienne de Kok's wonderful moving sculptures were also captivating as they swung rhythmically back and forth. A ceramic figure installation by Leora Lewis, porcelain face portraits by Clementina van der Walt and paper clay panels by Diane Harper added to the exciting, eclectic mix of the show. Other artist also on show include, sculptures by Harry Kentrotas, Nic Bladen and Gail Catlin with beautiful ceramic pieces by John Bauer, Christo Giles, Tania Babb, Henny Meyer, John Newdigate, Carol Hayward Fell, Lisa Firer, Tessa Gawith, Gene Swanepoel, Maureen Visage, My China and lighting and furniture by the Indulo Project.

Contemporary South African Painters

2011-06-02T07:42:00.000-07:00

Simon Stone, Giovanna Biallo, Kate Gottgens and John Murray

16 March - 16 April 2011

Opening words by Basil Jones of the Handspring Puppet Company


Kate Gottgens, Giovanna Biallo and Anne Walton at the opening

John Murray with portrait - Dark Cloud

Willemien de Villiers

2011-05-31T05:46:00.000-07:00

Willemien de Villiers

In February, we hosted Seedbed New Paintings by Willemien de Villiers. Williemen's delicate organic oil paintings were displayed with her exotic plants whose flowers, roots and bulbs were her inspiration for some of the paintings. Perhaps the best description is found in the words by the opening speaker, Gabeba Baderoon, "The paintings evoke the past, and also a space of interiority within the canvas themselves... In the paintings Willemien appears to listen to objects speaking - there is a sculptural quality to the relation of the objects in the paintings. The arrangement and posture of bodies in relation to one another are evocative and delicately observed."

Artist, Willemien de Villiers, pictured with three of her pieces

Single Chamber, 800 x 800, oil on canvas

Arrangement of Parts, 800 x 800, oil on canvas

Jewelry and Textiles Exhibition

2010-12-11T04:03:00.000-08:00

From the opening on Wednesday, 15 December 2010 to 15 January 2011, the Kalk Bay Modern will be hosting a luxurious show of artisan textiles and jewellery - over 35 designers, proudly South African, of course.

This stunning assortment of work provides an incredibly tactile and varied display in which there is definitely something for everyone.

Nic Bladen

House of Hector -Paula White

Erika Akira

From Nic Bladen there is an array of his exquisite silver jewellery cast from fynbos flowers. Work by Paula White from the House of Hector and Erika Akira reveal a different side to this beautiful medium while jewellers like Jane Eppel and Marzipan venture into the playful and offbeat with their unusual and creative pieces.

Jane Eppel

Marzipan

Wonderfully Mediaeval works by Michael Cope contrast and yet marry beautifully with the enchanting creations of Smith while Love Joy by Stephy is simply a magpie's delight.

Michael Cope

Love Joy - Stephy

And the jewellery display is not the only sumptuous feast for the eyes. Ornate felt creations like the one featured below by Nicole De Jaager are sure to whet your creative appetite while the delightful and funky works of Shine Shine will delight and amuse.

The comical Woo-men are sure to capture your heart (if they have not already) and make adorable gifts for the young and young at heart.

There is a striking display of work from Yda Walt and some beautifully delicate prints from Veldt, Skinny Laminx and of course,the superb Ekoka textiles, the designs of which are derived from the work of the San people who receive royalties on the printed meterage.

Skinny Laminx

Yda Walt

Ekoka

Textile and Jewellery Exhibition

2010-11-25T02:01:00.000-08:00

Exhibition: Point of Focus

2010-11-08T04:10:00.000-08:00

The Kalk Bay Modern recently hosted an unusual exhibition of both pinhole and conventional photography, Point of Focus.

The show featured both seasoned photographers such as Glen Green and Jenny Altschuler and novices such as Sandy Mclea and Lesley Goodman. Amongst the conventional photography are some beautiful portraits of the Himba of Namibia by Glen Green.

HIMBA WOMAN - Glen Green

As pointed out in a review by Lucinda Jolly, pinhole photography, which utilizes a combination of chemistry and uncertain childlike experimentation, has the qualities of the semi-magical science of alchemy.

The images produced, mostly landscapes with a few subtle portraits, are atmospheric, fey, transcendent.

LINDA AND THE GHOST - Gavin Foley

Lesley Goodman who produced the astonishing series, Baptism says, “My intention is not to take the ‘perfect shot’, but to allow the camera the camera to surprise me with images a conventional camera could not produce.”

BAPTISM 8 - Lesley Goodman

BAPTISM 13 - Lesley Goodman

Jenny Altschuler says of her work, “[This] project...extends my current focus on mortality, the inevitable passing of time and the transience of all experiences, good and bad.”

WE ONCE WERE HERE - Jenny Altschuler

Three of the pinhole cameras made and used by the photographers are on display, objects of beauty and curiosity in and of themselves.

Be sure to head down to the Kalk Bay Modern this week before part of the show comes down though a few of these beautiful pieces will have a place in the KBM for a while to come.

FIELD AND IMP - Tania Noble

Point of Focus features photography by: Dave Robertson, Sandy Mclea, Glen Green, Leanette Botha, Jenny Altschuler, Geof Kirby, Kevin Factor, Tanya Noble, Sean Foley, Betsy Lauryssen, Dawn Jones, Gavin Foley, Les Goodman and Luke Kaplan.

RISE - Sandy McLea

Art on Paper & Ceramics - Deborah Bell

2010-09-13T01:08:00.000-07:00

The Kalk Bay Modern is pleased to announce that the current exhibition, Art on Paper & Ceramics, will be extended to the 15th of September.

Featured in this intriguingly curated exhibition, are a number of new prints, a combination of etching and drypoint, by accomplished printmaker Deborah Bell. They are the result of her latest collaboration with David Krut Print Workshopin Johannesburg.

Bell's work is fundamentally informed by a personal search for the 'Self' and she often draws on spiritual imagery from a wide range of sources. Mythical figures, birds, beasts, boats and fusions of all these, populate her otherworldly spaces, whose dream-like qualities are enhanced by cycling imagery of people waking up and falling asleep.

Bell's belief that the 'Self' is discovered "through forms of intuition and intensely personal, individual experience" naturally result in a visual language that is intensely personal, while managing to reach the level of universality.

There is a review of Art on Paper and Ceramics in the 8 September edition of the Cape Times featuring an image of Deborah Bell's etching, Red Flux III (state I).

Red Flux III (state 1)

Bell has been represented by the Durban Art Gallery, the Johannesburg Art Gallery, the SA National Gallery in Cape Town, the Tatham Art Gallery in Pietermaritzburg, the University of Natal, the University of South Africa and the University of the Witwatersrand.

Art on Paper & Ceramics - Jane Eppel

2010-09-01T02:02:00.000-07:00

The Kalk Bay Modern is pleased to be featuring, in the current Art on Paper exhibition, some of the work of Jane Eppel, an artist who celebrates beauty and depth in unexpected places. Her work described as "quiet meditations which operate on two intersecting planes that allow the fusion of seeming opposites: privacy and accessibility, the personal and the public, the mysterious and the mundane, the spiritual and the worldly" by the late Professor Neville Dubow of the University of Cape Town.

Her work explores notions of homecoming, roots/routes, and hallowed space through personal iconography, often using images of her friends and family and the scenery of Cape Town.

Eppel, a Michaelis School of Art graduate, lives and works in Cape Town. She has displayed work at the Irma Stern Museum and was selected as a finalist for the Brett Kebble Awards in 2004.

Click on the link below to view her website.

http://www.janeeppel.com/

The delightful works featured in this post are from the series Let Them Lie they along with her Fairground Series from part of the Art on Paper & Ceramics Exhibition.

New Exhibition: Art of Paper & Ceramics

2010-08-10T00:25:00.001-07:00

The Kalk Bay Modern is pleased to be presenting an exciting new exhibition: Art on Paper & Ceramics, which will open on Wednesday 11^th August at 6:00PM and run until August 31^st. The concept behind this exhibition was born when KBM received some exciting new work from David Krut, The Artists Proof Studio and Tim Foulds.

The Artist Proof Studio is a quality Art Education Centre that specializes in printmaking through a variety of diverse partnerships with creative young artists, established professional artists, community groups, patrons and funders.

Paul Molete

An unusual and sensitive curatorial process has brought together an eclectic mix of artists and methodologies. The exquisite ceramics of John Bauer, Christina Bryer and Katherine Glenday sit alongside the edgy, disquieting work of Dumisani Mabaso and Deborah Bell and the charming kitchen-sink-inspired prints of Zak Benjamin.

Dumisani Masabo

The ethereally delicate prints of David Koloane sit shoulder to shoulder with the lucid, limpid work of Charles Gassner. Some powerful and often disturbing work from Paul Molete and Colbert Mashile add further food for thought.

Deborah Bell

Look forward to a truly stunning array of work from some of South Africa’s most established and respected artists – with so many big names all together in one room this is a show to be visited more than once!

David Koloane

Nicolaas Maritz: Mermaids and Mountains:

2010-07-23T02:27:00.001-07:00

As the end of Nicolaas Maritz’s exhibition, Mermaids and Mountains, draws to a close we will be taking a closer look at the some of the themes this exhibition explores.

A portion of the work features a child-like dreamy version of Table Mountain, depicted in his characteristically vivid and unusual colours.

It seems as if Nicolaas Maritz has always painted the mountain. Since his first Table Mountain ‘post-card’ paintings of 1988/89, he has often re-visited the subject, each time looking at it with a fresh eye, and starting from a different point of view. This time round he is less concerned with the actual topography of this large piece of Cape rock, than with the emotive atmosphere created by different artistic colourings.

In a quirky and wry body of work, his mermaid paintings are certainly the epitome of his special brand of humour and artistic discourse.

With these quirky new works Maritz seems to investigate the thin sardonic line that exists visually, between figurative confrontation, and overt painterly aggression. Three artistic species of sublime mermaid is depicted, rural Swartland Mermaids, sophisticated Cape Mermaids and evanescent Darling Pond Maids.

As is customary with Maritz, there is a disturbing undercurrent of wry humour, something ambivalently demonic and possibly unwholesome present, all of which lends a pressing ‘moral’ and ‘modern’ aspect to the otherwise febrile pictorial aesthetic.

Mountains and Mermaids ends this Sunday the 25^th July. Some of Maritz’s work will be on display Clarke's Bookshop stand at the Cape Town Book Fair at the Cape Town International Convention Centre from 23-25 July.

Nicolaas Maritz: 'Cape Lizardgy'

2010-07-13T03:43:00.001-07:00

In Kalk Bay Modern’s current exhibition by Nicolaas Maritz, Mermaids and Mountains, we see examples of the artist’s three painting ‘themes’, namely those of mermaids, mountains and flowers.

Featured in this blog are some of the smaller and more intimate series of ‘Cape Lizardgy’ paintings - playful foreground lizard shapes encircle the vision of Table Mountain in the distance. Like good omens, these guarding reptilian presences act as auspicious cryptographic symbols of permanent and prevailing life; representing pre-historic, contemporary, and future existence on these southern mountains, as opposed to the quick ‘shutter snap’ encounter; the fleeting ‘few-second moment’ engagement of the passing tourist-consumer.

Make sure you schedule in a visit to the Kalk Bay Modern before the 25 July when this intriguing exhibition closes.

New Work at KBM: Zak Benjamin

2010-06-12T05:50:00.000-07:00

The Kalk Bay Modern has recently acquired some exciting new work by the artist Zak Benjamin.

The etchings featured in this blog, now part of the KBM collection, are intricate depictions of the most ordinary household scenes, naturally occurring still lives. There is however, something delightfully quirky about them, elevating them far and above a simple study. Their humbleness is the basis for an extremely genuine quality that, to me, seems to stem from a deep love of life and shrewd sense of humour.

Born in 1951 in Pretoria, the son of a typical Afrikaans family, Zak Benjamin’s artistic and spiritual path has led him to struggle enormously with the social systems he grew up under. Though at one point a member of the Voortrekker movement and the Nationalist Party Youth Movement, his deep seated Christian values could not coexist with the policies of the Nationalist Government.

He dropped out of University and spent the next few years doing odd jobs and living in Europe before returning to South Africa and university where he did a BA in Fine Arts.

In the mid 1980’s Zak experienced a profound religious conversion that led to his friendship with sculptor Gert Swart. Together they have worked on many projects, continually working through what it means to be committed Christians and contemporary artists.

In 1991 Zak was able to start working as a full time artist. His work is varied in theme, some involving a personal iconography set in fantasy, whilst others look into the simplest aspects of everyday life and unearth their subtle poignancy.

Mermaids and Mountains: Nicolaas Maritz

2010-06-07T14:58:00.000-07:00

Mermaids and Mountains, an exhibition of paintings by Darling-based artist Nicolaas Maritz, will be opening this Wednesday June at the Kalk Bay Modern.

Maritz is a recognised South African artist whose work features in every major public and private collection in South Africa. His work is bold, brightly coloured and most often tongue-in-cheek – he finds humour to be a vital tool as an artist or ‘visual synthesizer’ and his 30 year career has allowed him to accumulate the rich and somewhat esoteric artistic code or language. Over the years these visual narratives have grown and multiplied in an organic manner enhancing the depth and complexity of his work.

He has worked with a variety of media but has a longstanding passion for enamel on board, often using simple house-paints as he did when experimenting in his parent’s garage when he was young. He has a particular fondness for certain traditional colours and has a deep interest and rich knowledge of their origins.

Maritz has been having annual studio exhibitions at the MSG, (MARITZ STUDIO GALLERY) in Darling since 1992. He won the NCSS CBC Notable Children's Trade Book Award (USA) in 1992 and the Parents' Choice Illustration Honor (USA) in 1994. He has exhibited widely, including the Valparaiso Biennale and the Cape Town Triennials.

New Artwork at Kalk Bay Modern

2010-05-31T05:47:00.001-07:00

The Kalk Bay Modern has recently acquired some new artwork by the exciting, upcoming artist Michael Chibogo.

He is passionately inspired to be the voice of the homeless and expresses their plight through the media of printing, painting and poetry. His intensely atmospheric work also speaks out against the abuse of drugs and alcohol that are the downfall of many homeless people, pointing out how these substances can lead any of us down their sad path. His work is inspired by a deep empathy and desire to ease the suffering of our less fortunate fellows.

Chibogo has participated in a number of exhibitions many at the Artist Proof Studio, in Newtown where he now works as an assistant facilitator. He also works for the Creative Inner City Initiative were he facilitates silkscreen printing workshops.

KBM is in the throes of preparation for a particularly exciting exhibition featuring art on paper to open later this year as well as the upcoming Nicolaas Maritz exhibition entitled Mermaids and Mountains which opens on Wednesday the 9^th of June.

Be sure not to miss out on any of these exciting events!

Ardmore Exhibition (A Tribute to Cecil Skotnes)

2010-05-17T00:34:00.000-07:00

The inspiring origins of the Ardmore Ceramic workshop make their beautiful pieces a fitting accompaniment to the work of veteran South Africa artist, Cecil Skotnes, in the Kalk Bay Modern’s most recent exhibition, A Tribute to Cecil Skotnes. The Ardmore section of the show was opened by Jonathan Berning, the son of Fée Berning who started the workshop after taking the now legendary Bonnie Ntshalintsha on as an assistant to her own private work.

Over time the workshop grew and a second workspace was established, providing a large group of self-employed previously-disadvantaged artists the infrastructure to make their livings.

To view the Ardmore Ceramic Art website click on the link below
http://www.ardmoreceramics.co.za/index.php

This beautiful piece below, currently on display at KBM, is entitled Ukwashela – The Proposal and was sculpted by Petros Gumbi and painted by Mickey Chonco.

It depicts a traditional Zulu ceremony in which a man proposes to a woman and she accepts him by donning white beads. The figures dancing around the piece are symbolic of the couples coming of age as newlyweds. Other traditional symbols used are a wooden stick – induku, and a spoon - ukhezo. The stick is the groom’s symbol indicating that he has reached the maturity to be a husband while the spoon is symbolic of the woman’s role in her future marriage – that of nurturer, care-giver and home-maker.

Petros Gumbi is a highly talented and skilled craftsman, taught under Fée Berning, and now one of Ardmore’s most successful artists.
Mickey Chonco has a passion for painting although he is also highly skilled in ceramic sculpture. His work is immediately recognizable by his particular sensitivity for colour which results in a distinctive harmony and elegance

The Kalk Bay Modern always has a selection of beautiful Ardmore Ceramics on display and is proud to have some particularly notable pieces on exhibition at the moment.

These beautiful ceramic sculptures coupled with the powerful prints of Cecil Skotnes make this an exhibition not to be missed.

A Tribute to Cecil Skotnes

2010-05-14T11:08:00.000-07:00

From 7 to 30 April, 2010, the Kalk Bay Modern had the pleasure of presenting one of their most exciting shows yet. A Tribute to Cecil Skotnes was opened by Tom Scully, the printer Skotnes worked with on a series entitled The Assassination of Shaka (1974) which is still on display at KBM.

Cecil Skotnes, who died on the 7^th of April 2009, was one of South Africa’s most venerated artists and social activists. During the racist Apartheid regime when black people were barred from all universities and institutions, he acted as cultural officer at the influential Polly Street Art Centre of the 50’s, training and encouraging young black artists, some of whom became household names.
He also set up the Nyanga Art Centre in the 80's, and taught at the legendary Community Arts Project. He was awarded the Goodman Gallery Award in 2005 for a lifetime of service to South African community and art.

In his own words:
“My work is grounded in an African idiom - when I was a boy at school a friend in the church ran a Salvation Army school in Soweto, so I visited there often, and since then I have traversed the entire country. It's been a fortuitous trek, this journey.
'There are two elements here - a great depth of understanding of the art of southern Africa before the white man even put his foot in the country and secondly, my experience in teaching and working with a serious small group of township people who became professional artists.”
He often dealt with aspects of South African history that were neglected due to the Aparthed government. The Assassination of Shaka, based on a poem by Stephen Gray of the same title, is an example of his passion for the authentic South African narrative.

As pointed out by Sue Williamson in an ARTHROB biography on Cecil Skotnes, one does not need to look hard to see how deeply rooted in the atmosphere of Africa Cecil Skotnes’ work is – it is plain to see in his rich earth colours and stark intense forms.

To read the entire biography on the fascinating household name, click on the link below.

http://www.artthrob.co.za/06july/artbio.html
This show also contained several beautiful pieces from the Ardmore Ceramic Workshop which will be the subject of the next blog.

Hand-inHand Beadworks.

2010-03-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

Today I present you with a feast for the eyes in the form of the beaded art cloths created by the Hand-in-Hand project supported by the Omba Arts Trust.

The artist’s we are currently looking at belong to groups that mostly fall under the umbrella project of the Omba Arts Trust and are Namibian in origin. After Namibia’s independence in 1990 the tourist trade began to blossom with the result that new products, crafts and artworks began to develop within the local San communities. Beadwork has been a traditional craft practised by San women across Southern Africa since time immemorial but it has been given a new life through wonderful projects like Hand-in-Hand.

Most of the subject matter derives from what was once the traditional work of San women – gathering. The vegetable garden created in the community is their contemporary equivalent and of great important to their livelihoods, thus vegetables, as well as flowers, insects, birds and small animals are common themes.

The work below is by Christina Eises and is unusual in its subject matter – depicted is a man hunting, a subject that is common enough amongst the male painters and printers in San art groups but rare amongst the women.

The above work, also dealing with the unusual hunting theme is signed Magdalena Eises, so perhaps the women’s claim to the traditional images of hunting is something these sisters feel strongly about!

My particular favourites are this charming depiction of two tortoises in the scrub by Mara Britz and this unusual, slightly abstracted scene with a horse and a bird in flight by Maria Kasube.

And here are a few more exquisite works by Elizabeth Ganses, Katarina Kous and Martha Kavatjindje respectively.

These breathtaking works are all created on a black cloth background which allows the light-catching beads to really sparkle. It takes about a week of fulltime beading to create one of these beautiful pieces.

Broken Arrow Contributors

2010-03-10T06:38:00.001-08:00

The Broken Arrow exhibition (which runs until 31March) has been contributed to by many different organisations and project groups. The oft-mentioned Omba Arts Trust is a Namibian NGO whose aim is to help alleviate poverty by creating jobs in the craft sector. They support many arts and craft projects of which the Ekoka project – a textile range created by KBM director Cheryl Rumbak using the designs of the Ekoka San – is one.
(Click on the link below for redirection to the Omba Arts Trust homepage)
http://www.omba.org.na/

Also falling under the Omba umbrella are the Art-i-San products, made by re-settled San communities now living on farms in eastern Namibia. The Donkerbos/Sonneblom farm is the home of Art-i-San, and their beautiful handmade ostrich eggshell and wire jewellery is currently on display as part of the Broken Arrow exhibition. Each bead in this exquisite jewellery is handmade and the income generated from the Art-i-San project is of vital importance to this community.

(Click on the link below to view an article in the Namibian Economist on a successful Art-i-San exhibition)
http://www.economist.com.na/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16616:art-i-san-exhibition-opens-&catid=539:general-news
Also created in the Art-i-San project, and on display in Broken Arrow, are the wire and wooden animals and beaded art cloths I have mentioned. The animals are both by Benny Martin and the beaded cloth is by Bettie Britz.

A large wall in the KBM (features below) is devoted to a stunning installation of linocut art prints, a series of “tubers” (veldt food) by San artist from Donkerblom Farm. We will have a closer look at the individual images at a later stage.

It is heartening to know that the fantastic work being done by the Omba Arts Trust is not up to them alone. KURU Development Trust from Botwana provided the oil paintings on canvas and reduction linocuts for the Exhibition.
“Kuru” is a Naro word meaning “ Do” or ‘Create’, chosen by the founders of the organisation as an appropriate word for the self-development projects initiated for the marginalised San peoples of Botswana. [Click on the link below to view their homepage]
http://www.artprintsa.com/the-kuru-art-project.html

SASI – the South African San Institute – is another admirable, independent NGO who upliftment efforts are primarily focussed on the San peoples of South Africa.
Their Vision: “To support the San peoples to grow and develop to the extent to which they can take permanent control over their lives, resources and destiny and harness with pride their unique heritage.

They in turn work in partnership with the Kuru Family of Organisations-KFO and the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa-WIMSA, and other San organisations. (Click on the link below to visit their homepage)
http://www.sasi.org.za/

The Kalk Bay Modern would like to thank the Omba Arts Trust, The Kuru Development Trust and SASI for their contribution.

!Xun artist: Donna Rumao (Broken Arrow)

2010-03-08T07:49:00.000-08:00

While reading My Elands Heart, the first publication of the stories and art from the !Xun and Khwe Art Project, I came across an artist whose long narrative was on a subject that piqued my interest.

Kasiku Donna Rumao, a young !Xun grandmother, living in a family that houses four generations of women under one roof, says, “If I should talk about being a woman in !Xun culture, I will tell long stories.”

And indeed she goes on to tell an incredibly complex tale about a man who took an elephant for his wife and his mad brother who killed her and her child. This story, like most !Xun tales, is incredibly rich in a metaphorical tradition that Westerners may find difficult to access.
A lot of its meaning is lost on me though, after Donna’s tale, her mother, the grand matriarch of the family explains some details to her gathered grand and great-grandchildren, and the translator.

Her explanation links hunting meat and having sex with women in the hunters mind, and is a microcosmic metaphor for birth and death and the cycle of life.

This insight into the life and experience of women in the !Xun culture stayed with me, as did the vibrant smiling face of Donna, from her photograph in My Elands Heart.

This is why when the work above caught my eye at the Broken Arrow opening (and its dreamy colours and atmosphere drew me to it) I was excited to see that it had been painted by the woman who had intrigued me so much.

The work is entitled Red Veldt Food and as one can immediately see, the only red objects to are three tiny nubs on the end of a tree branch at the very top of the painting that is otherwise filled to capacity with hungry wildlife. There is no doubt that what the artist is trying to communicate here is a scarcity of food.

This is extremely interesting in that many of these artists speak of the old times with great longing and describe a rich, plentiful life living off the land.
I went back to My Elands Heart to see if I could deduce something concrete about Donna’s opinions on the matter and sure enough the life she describes, though good in many ways, was a struggle.
Her and her mother both agree that, for them, today’s’ life is better, and great-grandmother Lalilu says she is glad her children were born in these times.

Below is a link to Donna’s extract from My Elands Heart.
http://www.kalaharipeoples.net/article.php?i=166&c=11
The works below are further examples of Kasiku Donna Rumao’s work.

!Xun artist: Flai Shipipa (Broken Arrow exhib)

2010-03-07T01:02:00.001-08:00

The first image one sees, walking into the Kalk Bay Modern for the Broken Arrow exhibition, is a painting by the artist Katala Flai Shipipa whom we have discussed in a previous blog. Flai, as he is known, is a !Xun artist from the !Xun and Khwe Project in Botswana, which was founded by the originator of the Kuru Project, Catharina Scheepers-Meyer, and is currently managed by Riette Mierke.

Flai, artist and storyteller, captured my interest when reading My Elands Heart and Memory and Magic and it is in the joining of his two gifts – story illustration – that he particularly soars. His particular style – firm, lucid and communicative – had been etched into my memory and when I walked into the Broken Arrow exhibition it was with delight that I was immediately presented with one of his works.

(To visit an earlier blog about Flai, click on the link below)

http://kalkbaymodern.blogspot.com/2010/02/xun-artist-katala-flai-shipipa.html

Seeing this work felt like a particular bonus for me not only because it is my favourite of Flai’s subjects - an illustration of a San tale – but because it is four paintings in one! Four separate scenes divided by a central cross, much like comic book frames, enhance the story-telling tone and allow for a rich and exciting combination of colours, as his backgrounds are generally dominated by a single bright expressive hue.

Whether this is an illustration of a particular story or merely of a memory of life the way it was before western change I do not know, but it is so similar in style to his story illustrations that I feel sure that there is a lot of information contained within these frames. Below are two examples of illustrative paintings that typically accompany his tales. These are called ‘The Hare and the Leopard’ and ‘The Tortoise and The Falcon’ and they are from Memory and Magic which I urge you to track down as this volume contains five of Flai’s stories, captured by a feat of translating skill involving four people.

While searching the web for relevant websites to link to this blog I was astonished and extremely excited to find nearly the entire content of My Elands Heart, scanned and contained within Google Books! To re-direct to it click on the link below!

http://books.google.co.za/books?id=oU6oemyL7zwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=my+elands+heart&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

This contains fascinating information on all the !Xun and Khwe Project artists and, particularly fascinating to me, one of Flai’s incredible stories, a relic of a time and culture that is sadly fading away.

[Click on the link below for a short biography on Katala Flai Shipipa]

http://www.africa-can.org/FILES/southaf/webcomp/SAN%20MEMORY%20PROJ/fragile/Xu_Khwe_tribes/Shipipa/index.html

Kuru Artist: Thamae Kaashe

2010-03-04T04:17:00.001-08:00

Thamae Kaashe is one of the Kuru artists that I find most intriguing. When I saw his painting of wild dogs at the opening of Broken Arrow, I felt a strong sense of recognition – this was an artist in the most fundamental sense of the word; his work has an intensely authentic quality that is only produced by an artist whose work process is so engaging to him as to transport him to another world during its creation. The resulting work then has the power to do the same for the viewer and I strongly feel that this is the case for Kaashe.

[For more pics and some biographical info on Kaashe click on the links below]

http://kalaharicraft.com/tkaashe_frames.htm

http://www.kuruart.com/artwork.php?Id=7&PHPSESSID=0911a6975832b5ab62b16797d233bc48

http://www.artprintsa.com/thama-kase.html

He is also a very sophisticated draughtsman as one can see in the lithograph print below, entitled Kudu, Ostrich and Hunting Set. The silhouette of the largest kudu is delicately but confidently drawn, and his use of overlapping forms is unusual in its acknowledgement of three-dimensional space.

Having seen these two images I eagerly searched around the gallery for more pictures signed ‘T Kaashe’ and had my expectations pleasantly fulfilled when a work that caught my eye bore his signature. This print, a depiction of the traditional Bible story of Noah’s Ark, attracted me with its bold and unusual colour scheme and held my intention with the charming and peculiar detail of the scene.

The swimming figure, which poetic logic tells me must be Noah, is an extremely unusual and amusing addition to the traditional image. He admits that he enjoys making people laugh with his pictures. "Why should I not make people laugh? Anyhow, I think people love the fun in my art," he says. I am much moved at this sentiment, coming as it does from someone who has no doubt suffered and had the pain of seeing his family and his people suffer greatly throughout his life.

The final image I have to share with you is a delicate and beautifully wrought still life, another lithograph print, entitled Stuff in The Shop. The fantasy of the previous works, which Thamae Kaashe is well known for gives way to a simple, earnest drawing exercise is which his masterful grip of composition is displayed. Desirable objects, a bicycle, clothing and multiple electronic devices, including a television, a cell phone and a radio, are carefully depicted, intertwined and brought together with a coiling rope.

He was born in 1971 on the farm Makriel in the Ghanzi District. He joined the Kuru Art Project in 1992. Together with the Kuru art project Thamae's work had been exhibited worldwide and has been reproduced in the Kuru Art Calendar and many other publications.

Broken Arrow; Qhaqhoo & Nxabe

2010-03-01T05:26:00.000-08:00

This weekend the Kalk Bay Modern took part in South Africa’s biggest art and design expo, the Design Indaba. The Indaba is recognised for its high curatorial standard, displaying and promoting only the best of local creativity. More info on KBM’s participation will be following shortly.

[Click on the link below to view the Design Indaba’s homepage]

http://www.designindaba.com/

In the meantime, back at the Gallery, the current exhibition, Broken Arrow, has provided me with many beautiful and exciting images to share with you as well as a range of new artists most of whom are from the Kuru Art Project in D’Kar, western Botswana.

‘Kuru’ is a Naro word meaning ‘to do’ or ‘to create’. The Project began in 1990 as part of the Kuru Development Trust and has built a name for itself and its artists, most of whom have exhibited internationally. The project initiators were careful not to ‘teach’ or ‘instruct’ these artists and as such there work is authentic and original, coming from the heart.

The work above is by an artist named Xgaoc'o x'are (or Qhaqhoo) who grew up in the Ghanzi District and joined the art project in 1992. He participated in the Graphica Creativa Exhibition in 1993 [see link below], where the Kuru Art Project won a trophy. Consequently he was invited to participate in the Intergrafia'94 World Award Winners Gallery, in Katowice, Poland and in Ronneby, Sweden and many other prestigious art events in northern Europe.

http://www3.jkl.fi/taidemuseo/graphica_creativa/e_index.htm

The painting below is by artist Nxabe. She also grew up in the Ghanzi District and joined the project in 1992. She has taken part in many local and international exhibitions together with the other Kuru artists and her work often appears in the yearly calendar of the Kuru art project.

I find this particular work enchanting. The colours are beautifully harmonious and her application of paint is interesting in its thinness – in some areas almost transparent. The two doll-like female figures are what capture me the most. There is something about the gentle, curious way in which they inhabit there peaceful, abstract world that is soothingly serene and dreamlike.

Broken Arrow San Art:: Exhibition Opening

2010-02-27T03:26:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday evening the Kalk Bay Modern was excited to present
'Broken Arrow' an exhibition of contemporary San artwork, in collaboration with SASI (The South African San Institute), The Kuru Art Project and their long time colleague The Omba Arts Trust.

[Click on the links below to view the homepages of these inspiring organisations]

http://www.omba.org.na/

http://www.sasi.org.za/

http://www.artprintsa.com/the-kuru-art-project.html

The exhibition includes painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, bead work and jewellery created by a number of San artists from communities all through southern Africa.
Nicolaas Maritz, an established South African artist who lives in
Darling, opened the show with a very informative speech about the
plight of the San.

Cheryl Rumbak and Nicolaas Maritz

[Click on the links below to read a brief profile on Maritz as well as an entertaining article on
his life and art in two fabulous Darling houses]

http://www.capegallery.co.za/nicholas_maritz_cv.htm

http://www.thepropertymag.co.za/pages/452774491/articles/2008/March/articles/Nicolaas-Maritz.asp

I was very excited to see so many extraordinary San artworks on show,
a few of which were by artists discussed in previous blogs. Up close
the works are even more vital and glowing than they are on a screen
and I urge anyone interested in either the San in particular or
contemporary art in general to visit this exhibition which runs
until 31^st of March

The first thing to catch my eye was a pair of carved wooden animals.
As one can see in the picture below, they are carved with incredible
sensitivity and delicacy. Maritz pointed them out during his speech
offering what i thought was a very valid insight: that their
sensitivity and care of workmanship is remarkable in its contrast to
what often constitutes contemporary art. Such qualities are often
undervalued in western art of the moment, with its high energy focus
on immediacy, punchiness and shock value, characteristic of our
disposable society.

Scattered around on shelves and tables were also incredibly wrought
wire animals, some cartoonishly exaggerated, others so skilfully
descriptive of their subject's contours that I was blown away. There
was also a beautiful display of San Jewellry from the company ArtiSan,
part of the Omba Arts Trust.

In the next few blogs i will be sharing with you some of the most
beautiful paintings and prints, all of which are currently on display
and for sale at the Kalk Bay Modern. The works on show were all
incredibly strong and the stories behind them fascinating, haunting
and beautiful. I look forward to sharing them with you!

As a taste of some of the delights to come, I’ve included a painting by the artist Andry Kashivi whom I have discussed in a previous blog. Enjoy!

!Xun artist: /Tuoi Stefaans Samcuia

2010-02-24T03:20:00.000-08:00

I’m beginning to realise that words are weak and insufficient tools to convey anything truly relevant about the power and authenticity of the work of the !Xun and Khwe. It is created by people with whom communication is a long-winded and inadequate process.

Marlene Sullivan Winberg relates her experiences with the translation process in Memory and Magic, her second book on these artists. A translator was required for the translator as he could speak !Xun and Afrikaans and she neither. This broken telephone is both a beautiful and sad phenomenon; an illustration of the paradox of language – that it is both a bridge and a barrier.
In contemporary culture we are used to thinking that words are the pinnacle of communication (and perhaps this is so) but ultimately, and something that has been addressed in postmodern theory, is the idea that we are all playing broken telephone with one another whether we speak the same language or not.

The power of these works lies in their wordlessness, their raw, vital sense of being, of existence, something that words do not have the power to convey.

All the works features today are by artist /Tuoi Stefaans Samcuia. A reticent young man, he speaks with long pauses between his sentences. He experienced terrible things when fighting against the Swapo in the Border War. These are his words on this experience and on his art:

“I don’t remember much but this I do: once we came upon a group of them [Swapo members] and shot three. The rest ran away. It hurt in my heart. This is why sometimes we drink a lot and walk around with the drunkenness in our heads. Then you cannot think or remember. But I do a lot of work with the paintings [....] I cannot read and write. I draw and paint. That is where people must read my work.”

His lino-cuts are amongst some of the most beautiful I have seen, both humourous and beautifully rendered.

[Below is a link to a history of the South African Border War on Wikipedia.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Border_War

!Xun artists: Kashivi & Dikuanga

2010-02-24T03:12:00.001-08:00

Today we’ll be taking a look at the work of two !Xwe artists from the !Xhun and Khwe San Arts and Culture Project, that began Schmidtsdrift.

Andry Kashivi, the first artist we’ll be talking about says that Platfontein, the 12 500 hectare farm purchased by the government for the !Xun and Khwe in 1999, is a much better place than the tent town in Schmidtsdrift – basically a refugee camp in which these two communities lived for almost 10 years waiting for land disputes to be settled in the new South Africa.

Andry has carried a few precious belongings with her all through her arduous journey spanning many miles and many years. Chiefly amongst these are the mortar and pestle belonging to her mother and a beaded dancing skirt.

Her oil on canvas painting above, entitled Tree of Life with Gecko and Buck (1998), shows, I feel, some of the joy of life, resilience and spiritual beauty that one can deduce about Kashivi from her interview. (Read it and others in My Elands Heart, compiled and arranged by Marlene Sullivan Winberg, for sale at the Kalk Bay Modern)

The next work is by Joao Wenne Dikuanga and is a most astonishingly strong piece of work.

Joao, the oldest member of the group is an extremely quiet man. In his interview the few words he chooses to say come across with gravity. Wonderfully, he describes his creative process. It is linked to the hunting of the eland, something close to his heart:

“Here at Platfontein is no eland. When i think of this eland inside me, I just take a sheet of paper and draw it [....] [My work] comes from my heart or my head. It is from the old days, like what my father did. I think until i find the right image and then draw it.”

Below are another two works by Dikuanga illustrating the hunt.

(Click on the link below to view an article entitled Trailing the Schmidtsdrift San)

http://www.southafrica.info/travel/cultural/wildebeestkuil.htm

!Xun Artist: Katala Flai Shipipa

2010-02-22T03:07:00.000-08:00

The Kalk Bay Modern is proud to be presenting Broken Arrow, an exhibition of paintings, sculptures, lino prints and beaded embroideries created by artists from San communities from South Africa, Namibia and Botswana.

Cheryl Rumbak (KBM director) is passionate about the San and, as has been discussed in previous blogs, has worked with them extensively through art and upliftment projects. She has also exhibited their work on a number of occasions and next Wednesday the KBM will have the pleasure of presenting work from a number of different groups including the remarkable Kuru Art Project.

[Click on the link below to visit their homepage]
http://www.artprintsa.com/the-kuru-art-project.html

Over the next few days I will be exploring the work on the !Xun and Khwe from !Xun and Khwe Cultural Project in Schmidtsdrift founded by Catharina Scheepers-Meyer and now managed by Marlene Sullivan Winberg.
There are two truly beautiful books documenting the work and artists of this project which will be for sale at the gallery from Wednesday. They are My Eland’s Heart and Memory and Magic.

[Click on the link below to read extracts from My Eland’s Heart on The Kalahari People’s Network]

http://www.kalaharipeoples.net/

To whet your appetite, today I’ll be posting an extraordinary painting by the !Xun artist Katala Flai Shipipa. It is entitled Firemaker (painted in 2000, 1120mm x 820mm).

Flai, as he signs his work, is not only an extraordinary painter but is also a storyteller. Five stories appear in the back of Memory and Magic that he relates from the old life, before westernization, remnants of the San oral tradition. The book contains an interview with each artist but as most of them speak no English, a translator was required. The young man in question was Flai’s grandson Joaquin.

During the interview Flai suddenly started telling these ancient tales, stories that had been handed down through families for generations. Joaquin had never heard these stories – as Flai himself had said earlier in the interview, “The old stories are quiet now.”

It seems quite possible that without the creative encouragement and support of this project, these stories may have died with Flai never to be heard by his grandchildren or anyone else.

Broken Arrow opens on Wednesday 24 a 6:00 PM and will be opened by Nicholaas Maritz. It runs until 31 March 2010 and is really not a show to be missed.

Keiskamma Art Project

2010-02-13T01:41:00.001-08:00

The Kalk Bay Modern Gallery has, as I have mentioned before, a policy of supporting social upliftment schemes and projects. After discussing the Ekoka group and the life-enhancing workshops they have been involved with, I thought it would be appropriate to look at some of the other projects that KBM supports.

The Keiskamma Art Project is one such scheme and the story of how a small community arts project slowly transformed into the thriving Keiskamma Trust is an inspirational account of how art really can make waves, especially when it comes from the heart.

[click on the link below to view the Keiskamma Trust’s homepage]

http://www.keiskamma.org/

The Trust aims to address the challenges of widespread poverty and disease, particularly HIV/AIDs. The Keiskamma Health Program provides the only HIV/AIDs treatment in this part of South Africa and currently has nearly 200 people on anti-retroviral drugs.

The Art Project, the inspirational spark from which all this developed, was started in 2000 by Carol Hofmeyr, a qualified doctor, in the village of Hamburg in the Eastern Cape. Taking a hiatus from her profession, she had originally decided to settle there and create her own art but found that she couldn’t ignore the poverty and the suffering of the local community. She started working with a few of the women in the area teaching them to embroider in order to make an income.

Since 2000, the project has grown in leaps and bounds and is now running under the capable leadership of Florence Danais, Nomfusi Nkani and a dedicated team of 11 local managers: Buyiswa Beja, Veronica Betani, Nokuphiwa Gedze, Nozeti Makhubalo, Nonzaliseko Makubalo, Nombuyiselo Malumbezo, Ndileka Mapuma, Cebo Mvubu, Novuyani Peyi, Caroline Tyibilika and Pumla Zita), 10 women and 1 young man involved in the project who have over the years developed the skills to assume management positions thanks to the mission of the Project to grow local skills.

The Keiskamma Art Project has worked on some truly incredible artworks. In 2004 they exhibited their first truly notable artwork, The Keiskamma Tapestry at the National Arts Festival. This incredible embroidery portrays the history of the Eastern Cape focusing on the Xhosa people and is 120 meters in length and 0, 5 meters wide. A small section of it is displayed below.

One of their most monumental and inspiring works is the Keiskamma altarpiece which has toured North America. Made up of embroidery and photographs this piece is modeled on the 15^th century Isenheim Altarpiece by Grünewald. It is divided into 3 panels, one of which is featured below.

[click on the link below to view an interesting review on the altarpiece]

http://artheat.net/2009/12/faith-and-art-keiskamma-altarpiece.html

The power of the Keiskamma Project has spread internationally and has attracted the attention of world famous artist Damien Hirst who, in collaboration with the London White Cube Gallery has donated the proceeds of one of his paintings to the Trust. [To see his beautiful work, Psalm 5 Verba mea auribus on the White Cube website, click on the link below.]

http://www.whitecube.com/editions/psalm/

Many beautiful handmade Keiskamma products can be purchased at the Kalk Bay Modern Gallery.

(An image of the early Keiskamma work for sale in their first shop. These successful products still form the majority of the worker's income.)

Ekoka Artists: Outsider Artists?

2010-02-10T06:09:00.001-08:00

In the previous blog I briefly described the phenomenon of Outsider Art – art that is created outside academic or institutional parameters – and will today be exploring its cultural value as well as the extent to which we could describe the Ekoka artists in such terms.

The Ekoka group, as I have mentioned before, have had no formal training prior to this workshop. Having now taken part in art workshops could we still label them under this term and should we even care to try? Would the term ‘Naive Art’ – artists that have had some contact with mainstream art and often emulate it – be more appropriate?

I would say an important factor lies in the method of the workshops. A central aim was to reunite these disposed people with a culture that was roughly torn away from them. In this sense they are certainly not being encouraged to conform to any mainstream ideals but to reconnect to their past and their heritage. As with any group of people some of these men and woman have much greater creative and explorative tendencies – some are true artists, others lean towards creation as a craft, a pleasant, income-generating activity but not something that requires or involves their hearts or souls.

An intense desire to create occurs naturally within some people even if they have no tradition or social infrastructure to support this. A few of the participants had modelled animals from wood or taken part in some other creative activity before this workshop such as sewing and beading. I would say that these individuals have always been artists and certainly they have been and still are on the outside of mainstream society.

While some might argue that having had contact with a western scheme for freeing creativity they cannot now be termed Outsider Artists. As all terms are fairly arbitrary it’s hard to say whether this is true or not. In many ways they do fit the bill – certainly their work is interesting to observe from the perspective of it being removed from the mainstream culture.

As to the individuality of the artists the work speaks for itself. There is the overall impression of great similarity just as there often is in the art of children who learn together. However it is the subtle differences that we should keep our eyes open for; it’s in these that we can see the seeds of their future creativity. Knowing their deprived and impoverished backgrounds it is truly a miraculous thing to observe each little quirk that presents itself, each struggle with perspective and fascinating solution to space, each little flag of individuality. To have the opportunity to see these creative spirits emerge from the chrysalis of their harsh lives is miraculous and an honour.

Below I have listed some very interesting links on outsider art as well as the blogs of a few current outsider artists who use the internet as a public space to display their works.

Here is the webpage for OutsiderArt.inof - an International Outsider Exhibition of Modern Art (IOEMA)

http://www.outsiderart.info/index.htm

Here is a wonderful link to information about South Africa's most famous outsider artist duo team of Helen Martins and Koos Malgas - creators of the Owl House.

http://www.owlhouse.co.za/helen.html

Here are two private blogs by interesting outsider artists I came across.

http://www.alcoholicoutsiderartist.blogspot.com/

http://www.kellymoore.net/

Ekoka Artists: Tusnelda Kamati & Raima Namupala

2010-02-08T07:47:00.000-08:00

Today I will be discussing the last two Ekoka artists from this workshop and introducing the concept of ‘outsider artists’, a term that could be used to describe the Ekoka group – I will be elaborating on this interesting phenomenon in my next blog.

The first artist is Tusnelda Kamati who is originally from Oshipala where she began her schooling. Her family moved to Ongangola where she attended a missionary school and had to restart the first grade– something she was very upset about. Here she reached Grade 6 whereupon she moved to a trade school that taught needlework and sewing. She became a teacher at Ekoka where she taught pre-school and the first grade to the Quagga and !Kung locals.

She married and had 10 children of which, sadly, only 5 are alive today

Tusnelda is improving and growing in her art and is very serious about her work. Her paintings are becoming very sought after and her own words on the matter are, “It’s good for me to be serious in a workshop otherwise God would be angry with me.”

Unfortunately I have only one simple lino-cut as an example of Tusnelda’s work. I will track down more varied examples of all the Ekoka’s artists’ work and will be posting them at a later date.

This image shows a very delicate, whimsical technique quite unusual amongst this group of artists whose style is obviously quite raw. The design is very simple and more of a pattern than a picture, formed from the bodies of 5 snakes, geometrically ordered, and two delicately rendered trees. The process of lino-cutting entails that everything that is not to be printed is cut away (the opposite of drawing) and Tusnelda has treated her negative space in a very conscious way – usually there are some lines left within a ‘white’ background and here they all lie in one direction instead of the more common method of allowing them to follow the form of the foreground. I feel this is a clear indication of the seriousness and focus of Tusnelda’s style and is certainly something very unique in her work.

Our second artist is Raima Namupala. He was born in Elundu but grew in Okongo, where he went to school until the missionaries came. He married very young and his first wife and child died; tragically the same thing happened in his second marriage. In 1993 he moved to Ekoka when the government took over the land management and there he met his current wife Maria, who took part in a drama workshop linked to these art workshops. They have three children.

He is happy to be part of the art project and he can feel that he’s improving in drawing, linocut and painting. During this workshop he was very happy to receive his first payment.

Raima has a strong style with a strong illustrative quality. In the image above we can see a wonderfully quirky sense of design in the shape of his tree – a very successful silhouette. There is also an amusing quality in the upward glance of the bird on the ground – wonderfully hieroglyphic in design – at his colleague on the top of the tree.

In the previous blog, which featured Hendelina Hamukanda I raised the point that these artists have had little or no artists training before this point and that they come to workshop with concepts and natural tendencies that any who have studied art – even as a school subject – will have lost.

Artists that create outside the influence of societal influences are termed Outsider Artists by some and their art began to generate interest and appreciation just after the beginning of the last century.

The term was coined by Roger Cardinal as an English synonym to art brut (French for ‘raw’ or ‘rough’ art), a label created by the artist Jean Dubuffet. A notable South African Outsider artist was Helen Martins who created the Owl House. I will further explore her work in the next blog and discuss to what extent the Ekoka artists fit into this category and whether the term has any worth to begin with.

[for more information on Outsider Artists click on the informative Wikipedia link below]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art

Ekoka artist: Hendelina Hamukanda

2010-02-06T12:23:00.001-08:00

Hendelina Hamukanda is one of the most interesting Ekoka artists and one of my firm favourites. Born in Oshana, north of Okongo, she now lives in Ekoka with her grandmother and her two children. She is in her late 20’s and has five brothers and 3 sisters.

Her workshop report indicates that she has the potential to develop into a very strong artist and is more experimental than the other women artists. In particular she is a very good lino-cutter and enjoys experimenting with this medium. She is determined, focused and enthusiastic with a sense of humour and boldness about her work. She says she feels very committed to the project and she’s hoping to get money for food and soap for her family.

The first work we will be discussing shows some of the most characterful and originally depicted animals I have seen in the works of these artists (edition 6/50).

I must confess that I do not know what exactly these animals are but it is very clear that they have been carefully observed and rendered. Two bendy trees and a snake form a compositionally strong semi-circular border on either side of which lie a sun and a moon. I find the observation in the postures of the two bottom animals really incredible – it must be remembered that prior to these workshops the majority of its participants had little or no artistic experience and to see natural observational and creative talent emerge from a lifetime’s dormancy is a miraculous thing and a truly wonderful gift.

The second linocut (6/40) is a simple little image but features two more delightful animals. In particular their heads and feet are enchantingly depicted and the one appears to have interesting curly horns (or ears).

I’m extremely glad to have an example of Hendelina’s painting and this is a truly delightful work. Its complexity and variety make for an absorbing and intriguing image.

The dominant figure is that of an extremely happy looking man carrying a long leafy branch on which a small blue spotty parcel is attached. A most amusing and charming detail is that his bottom half appears to have started out as a house, complete with red triangular roof and square blue windows. Directly below his striding legs lies a smoking fire (or possibly a spider) that is attached in size and narrative space to a small hut containing a tiny woman. It seems clear to me that this mammoth bread-winner is on his way home and that this little scene lies in the distance as his destination.

This charming lack of concern for real space reminds me of the intense process undertaken by young children in their drawings. I have watched my little cousin draw pictures of battles, spaceships and dinosaurs and as he draws he makes sound effects, develops stories, kills off characters and introduces new ones; in short the picture plane is a rich and interactive surface in which the process of creation is of prime concern and an all-absorbing alternate reality during the drawing’s execution. This is a characteristic that is sadly lost as the years go past and more value is placed on the product, and its worth in the eyes of others, than the process. Viewed in this way, a more developed style of drawing has actually lost a great deal of depth and is somewhat ‘dead’ or one-dimensional by comparison. This reminds me of the famous quote by Picasso in which he observes that “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up”.

There is once again a host of fantastic animals the most delightful of which is a pale green lizard in whose arched back and overall posture, the essence of this little creature is perfectly captured.

Ekoka artist: Ndapewa Namupalwa

2010-02-04T03:34:00.000-08:00

Ndapewa Namupalwa is 28 years old, from Ongangolas and she has 4 sisters and 3 brothers. She was born in Okango and grew up in Ekoka. She attended school for a while but left in Grade 6 in order to marry. She now lives with her mother as, sadly, her husband is deceased. Like many of the people in her community Ndapewa has had a very difficult life and has suffered through many tragic events.

The picture below shows a very beautiful young woman with a distressingly hard face as if life has dealt her many hard blows.

She had three children but only her middle child is still alive. Happily though, on the last night of the workshop (she produced 6 works while heavily pregnant) she gave birth to a little girl. Abraham Hamunyela, the first Ekoka artist we looked at, is the new baby's grandfather.

The workshop's reports say of Ndapewa that she has a bold style, draws well and has a good colour sense (unfortunately I have no examples of her paintings). She is very happy to be a part of these workshops and says that drawing and painting make her heart feel good.

The first image of hers we will be looking at (edition 5/40) is a good example of her bold style.

It features an enormous snake whose curving body spans the entire length of a tree. In some shrubbery below sits a little bird and to the right is a large circular object that appears to be a sunflower but called also be a pond of some sort. It is a very gentle, unassuming little scene, extremely innocent and cheerful.

It seems to contrast greatly with her next work (8/60) which is more roughly carved, with far more directional background markings than in the very cleanly cut first image.

The image is primarily dominated by an enormous sprawling plant, with restio-like reeds making up the bottom half, topped by the most extraordinary flower. The black petals are each dashed with 2 or three white marks and are the most peculiar shape - each comprising of a main leaf-shape off of which sprout smaller lobes. The petals look alarmingly like wailing distorted faces.

In the left corner almost pushed off the page by the monstrous plant is an exceedingly strange but charming little creature - perhaps a fox by his pointy ears - with a wide, slightly shy, smile on his face. She has chosen to represent him from a challenging viewpoint, face-on in a sitting position and has come up with an interesting solution to the challenge that conveys upon the creature a definite character.

Ekoka Artist: Simon Hampolo

2010-01-30T02:11:00.000-08:00

Simon Hampolo is amongst the older men of the group and is called Tate Simon, meaning ‘Father Simon’. He is 55 years old. He was born in Omule, south east of Eenhana and as a little boy of 8 started working at a cattle post. He worked there for 3 years then went to school in 1966 at Okongo where he stayed in a hostel. He got to grade 8 which is quite an achievement amongst his peers – school is a luxury that few can afford to continue at the expense of working and making money.
However it is clear that Simon could have gone far in school – he assists the art teacher of the Ekoka workshops by acting as a translator as he speaks some English and Afrikaans.

After his schooling career he started working at various odd jobs, including work in a butcher’s shop, in order to support his family. At the age of 28 he got married in a church and has 7 children and has worked continually to provide for their needs.
He feels that everyone has changed through their participation in the art project and has faith in it as a steady source of income. He also feels however that not everybody is using the money properly.
Simon is an adept linocutter as we can see from the examples of his work below. His forms are clean, carefully depicted and highly detailed and his spacing has an organized quality.

I find his work extremely engaging as it seems to convey an overall atmosphere of cheerful competence and delight in working. Both examples follow the ‘display of goods’ format and exhibit a high level of care taken in their execution. In the work below (edition 12/40) we can see a large number of craft goods displayed in an extremely successful composition.

Easily identified amongst the many pictograms is an intricately ornamental bag, and beautifully depicted strings of beads. There are other objects all highly detailed and embellished whose function I am less sure of. There appear to be objects much like maracas –decorated gourds filled with seeds and used as musical instruments, as well as many curiously formed containers – each no doubt with some very specific use.

His second linocut (9/40) runs along similar lines but contains some incredibly rendered insects. His two centipedes are truly fantastic in the carefully segmented and many-legged detail and even his adorable scorpion has been highly embellished. Next to them are many patterned objects, no doubt rocks, and amongst them what I am convinced is the fossil of a fish – a rock on which the tiny body of a beautifully observed fish has been rendered.
The layout of his various objects displays an incredible natural sense of design and harmonious balance and it is clear that in art making he has found an outlet for highly sensitive observational skills.

Ekoka artist: Joseph Lasarus

2010-01-29T00:14:00.001-08:00

Today’s Ekoka artist is Joseph Lasarus, a young man in his mid-twenties who was born in Ekoka to Kanemo Lukas and Matias Lasarus. He went to school up until Grade 4. He has two siblings and is married to the daughter of a fellow Ekoka workshop artist, Tate Simon. Sadly, at the time of the last workshop, their only child had died at birth.

He grew up in the Kavango region and this is where her learned woodcarving from a man by the name of Ismael Ndumba so unlike many of the Ekoka artist’s Joseph has made a living off his art before. He sold his carvings at Okahandja where he learned a little English. He is very interested in the art workshops but feels he will need to work at linocutting for a while before he will be as good at it as he is as woodcarving. He likes to carve animals, hippos, rhinos, elephants and also makes spoons and bowls. He also earns money by making bricks, building houses and doing general handyman jobs.

The linocut below (edition 4/60) is interesting in that it documents an observable interaction between animals; it has a documentary or narrative element. An enormous snake, whose twisted body fills up the majority of the page, is about to engulf a small four-legged creature with a very long tail. What this creature might be or even if he is a hybrid animal I am not sure, but Joseph has managed to convey through the positioning of his legs that he is attempting to make an escape, rather charmingly down the side of the page.

While the printmaking medium of linocutting is the most efficient medium for the Ekoka artist’s in terms of monetary returns (high editions mean the chance to sell the image many times) painting is often what captures the artist’s imaginations the most. The chance to use colour and the sensually delightful process of mixing paint and applying it is a truly expansive and enrichening process.

The artist’s are educated in colour mixing and colour theory in order to get the most out of their experience. Here we can see that Joseph has chosen a beautifully harmonious palette comprising mostly of natural earthy tones, yellow ochre, red ochre and sienna which are offset by a cool bluish grey and a cheerful pink spot on the body of one of his cows.

The cows are enclosed in a box surrounded by a zigzag border but on closer inspection this is not merely a design solution – this is in fact a cattle kraal as one can deduce from the markings for a gateway to the right.

Outside the kraal, stylized as symbols rather than objects sharing real space with the cows, are a range of hunting weapons. Here we see contrasted the two traditional lifestyles of South Africa’s earliest indigenous peoples. It is not commonly known that the San people and the Khoi had different survival methods – that the San were primarily hunter-gatherers and that the Khoi, who originated from slightly further north were livestock farmers who supplemented their farming with hunting. This led to a lot of little known conflict between the groups over land and animals.

[for more information on these two peoples click on the link below]

http://library.thinkquest.org/27804/HISTORY.html

Ekoka artist: Filipus Shikomba

2010-01-26T06:56:00.000-08:00

The artist we will be discussing today is one of my personal favorites amongst the Ekoka group and is also described as one of the most talented artists in the reports written up following the workshops.

Filipus Shikomba, from the Kwakwa community, is in his mid thirties and has attended all of the workshops. He was born in Ekoka, where his mother still lives, and he is married with four children, two boys and two girls. He’s from the Quagga Xwanga tribe and his father was brought to Ekoka by the Finnish missionaries from Mangetti.

In addition to being described as one of the most talented artists of the group, he is also noted for his self containment and focus, always working at his own pace. His own words on the workshops are that they are, “A very nice project because you give something and you get something back”.

The two works below deal with a fairly common theme – animals amongst foliage – but what is interesting about fillipus’s work is his characteristic drawing skill – notice the observation apparent in the form of the rabbit, particularly around his mouth, and the exquisite shape of the cat-like animal in the second image. He also depicts an unusual variety of animals as if the natural world holds a great deal of fascination for him. The lion with his delightful mane, the ostrich, the guinea fowl-like bird and the peculiar lizard with a darting tongue are all individually realized.

The beautiful foliage in the second image dominates the page in an intricate and beautiful sprawl that seems to indicate that the artist was temporarily suspended in that sublime timeless moment of creation, an unequivocal reveling in beauty, which is the joy of art-making. This foliage design has been lifted and used to create a highly successful textile design for which Filipus receives royalties for every meter printed.

In the next image he has taken the observation of plant life to the next level by making an entire linocut out of it. His beautiful depictions of seedpods, leaves twigs and trees make for a peaceful and truly beautiful image. This work has also been converted into a textile design for sale at the Kalk Bay Modern and to be features at the upcoming design indaba.

The last image of Filipus’s I will be discussing is in the ‘display’ format in which several objects are laid out almost as if on a cloth for a buyer’s perusal.

One element that is particularly interesting about this image is its symmetry. Another is that it contains an instantly alarming shape – that of a gun. In my readings about traditional Khoisan artwork I found that while the element of ‘good’ was mostly represented in rock art by an eland, the element of ‘bad’ was initially represented by a predator, but upon the arrival of the western man the latter slowly changed to the image of a gun.

[for more information on traditional Khoisan rock art click on the links below]

http://www.antbear.co.za/information/bushman-paintings.htm

http://www.rebirth.co.za/african_art/rock_painting_.htm

What Filipus’s feelings behind the image of the gun are I cannot say – but it seems unlikely that a gun is something he owns whether in order to use for hunting or self-protection. Therefore a gun to him has always most likely been in the hands of others and quite possibly amongst them, those whom he would rather did not have one. On the other hand it may be something he would very much like to own.

It interests me that it is placed on top of a symmetrical (and therefore visually hierarchical) collection of goods that comprise of craft items (cups and what I imagine is a mat or simply another picture) and calabashes or watermelons (with his characteristic vine beautifully offsetting the symmetry).

I can’t say for sure what the relevance of this placement is but what certainly springs out at me is a progression from natural material, to useful objects crafted out of natural material, to a distinctly unnatural and fearful man-made creation – a gun, a singular item that sits alone, in the most commanding position, at top of the image.

Ekoka artist: Filiemon Sakaria

2010-01-24T10:50:00.001-08:00

Today we will be looking at the life and work of one of the youngest participators in the art workshops run by Cheryl Rumbak, director of the Kalk Bay Modern and supported by the Omba Arts Trust. The Trust is a non profit Namibian NGO that aims to support job creation and poverty alleviation through the development of the craft sector.

[To view the Omba Arts Trust homepage click on the link below)

http://www.omba.org.na/

At the time of the last workshop Filiemon Sakaria was 15 years old and lived with his parents. He has two years of schooling at the Ongongola School and has two brothers and two sisters, one of who is Ndapewa a young woman artist I will be discussing later.

Reports from the workshops indicate that Filiemon is very talented, productive and a good draughtsman. He is good at cutting lino and prefers it to painting. He is also very interested in different types of animals which one can see in the variety of creatures he depicts in his linocuts.

The work below (edition 11/40) is a particularly fine example of his lino-cutting skills.

In particular the oversized grasshopper looming from the branches of a leafy tree displays Filiemon’s remarkable observation and drawing skills. The charming figure of a peculiar little man is a rare example of the depiction of human beings, common to most of the artists in this workshop. He is very small in comparison to the animals and has an officious and chirpy posture that is offset by his clothing – he appears to be wearing a short sleeved shirt and pants with a fly and pockets. He carries a stick and certainly does not appear to be a hunter – the human archetype most commonly represented. It seems likely that he is a game ranger or some sort of an official – an interesting reference to contemporary changes to the traditional landscape.

Another inventive and original design concept is seen in the work below (2/7) in which a group of animals encircle a watering hole containing long-legged birds, undoubtedly flamingoes.

I find the composition to be intriguingly unique. Although Filiemon has not utilized conventional perspective he is nonetheless dealing with the concept of space; he has conceptualized it as an important aspect of his chosen image and come up with a way to convey his message. The result is both charming and decorative, forming a pleasing mandala shape with a strong design component. The animals are drawn with a beautiful sensitivity and delicacy – particularly the heads of the two seem in profile opposite to one another across the pool. This is obviously a perspective which he has had the chance to observe while the other animals are subjected to various inventive and charming angles intended to indicate that they are being viewed from above.

Ekoka artist: Immanuel Khangono

2010-01-20T03:30:00.001-08:00

The San artist we will be focusing on today is Immanuel Khangono.

Immanuel was born in Ekoka, a town in Ohangwena, Namibia. His father and other relatives still live in and around Ohangwena and Immanuel currently lives in Oniihwa, the far side of Ondangwa. He got the job through a nurse at the Ekoka clinic and he looks after the nurse’s father and their cattle. He is very fortunate in that his employer is happy to give him time off in order to attend the drawing workshops run by the Omba Art’s Trust. He intends to start saving some money and would very much like to open a bank account but, like so many in his position, has no ID with which to do so.

He very much enjoys being part of the workshop and feels he has made progress since the last one.

The work below, a linocut (editioned 7/40) displays a circular format in which elements of the natural world, and the artist’s familiar environment) are displayed in a manner that has little reference to real space but rather employs a pleasing use of pictorial arrangement.

A tradition skill passed down from father to son that many of these men possess is the technique of carving small animals out of wood and one cam almost imagine here that what is displayed is several of these stylized carvings on a single substrate – they are arranged charmingly, each shown off to its best advantage in relation to the others, but no attempt has been made to have them ‘interact’ or form a story. In some of the other works we will address later, we’ll see that this is quite a common format for depicting tools, pots and other hand-made objects, an interesting and unique theme characteristic of their day-to-day focus.

In a rather different vein, the print below (21/40) features three wild dogs or hyenas under a night sky.

The three dogs have their tongues hanging out and are bound together in a way that is quite unusual in its strong sense of a story or a legend. They are standing on grass and share real space, a feature that is fairly uncommon amongst the works produced in this workshop.

It is important to note that the method of linocut is a particularly efficient method to teach in these workshops for the reason that high editions can be produced. This means that the artist’s have a greater chance of creating an income out of their labour. All works discussed are for sale unframed at the Kalk Bay Modern. KBM also provides an expert framing facility.

Ekoka artist: Abramham Hamunyela

2010-01-17T07:43:00.000-08:00

Today I’ll be doing my first Ekoka San artist profile. The artist in question is Abraham Hamunyela (generally all the Ekoka artists sign their works with their first names). He was born in Enana where some of his sons still live. He is married, with six children and two granddaughters and is a very quiet and self contained person.

Abraham’s work is very characteristic of this group. All the artists work with linocut and some paint with oil on canvas as well and their themes are very much centered on daily life in their communities and environments. The style is drawn from traditional San rock paintings but each artist shows interesting quirks and methods of their own.

This linocut showing a man with a spear in an environment of tree’s and birds, is an example of Abrahams work and, I think, shows his quiet and fairly conservative nature. While other artists from this group sometimes draw contemporary objects his images are always fairly traditional in terms of subject matter, possibly also because he is one of the oldest in the group.

Men hunting, birds, animals and trees are things he likes to depict and he does so with a quiet assurance.

The work below shows a variety of animals and trees with only a spear on the ground indicating any human presence.

As is the case with most of the artists’ work, there is a combination of stylization and observation in the depiction of the scenes. While the trees and animals are definitely very simplified, there are areas of what is clearly observation based drawing – such as the tail area and hind quarters of the buck in this picture and in the various bark patterns and leaf types of the print above. The stylized sun in this work is a rare reference to depth of field – usually only the immediate scene is dealt with.

For more information about the Kung Ekoka indigenous peoples of Southern Africa visit the fascinating Joshua Project website. [Click on the link below]

http://www.joshuaproject.net/peopctry.php?rop3=105420&rog3=WA

San Ekoka Textiles Introduction

2010-01-13T12:48:00.001-08:00

The Kalk Bay Modern is kick starting the New Year with preparations for the Design Indaba (26 Feb 2010 - 28 Feb 2010) in which they will be showcasing one of their most successful products – the Ekoka San Textile range.

[for more info on the Design Indaba click on the link below]

http://www.designindaba.com/events/home

The story behind the textiles is a heartening one and at the core of the Kalk Bay Modern’s ethos to support community development and local creativity.

The Southern African San are made up of small communities spread out from the Northern Cape, Namibia, Botswana and Angola. Their way of life was shattered by the advent of the West into Southern Africa as well as the descent of more northern African tribes into these regions. The result is that today they resemble so many of the world’s displaced original peoples, living lives that straddle the border of the old and the new, lives that are often violent, harsh and in the clutches of alcoholism.

Over a decade ago Cheryl Rumbak, the director of the Kalk Bay Modern, came up with the idea of preserving the heritage of the San by creating textiles using the traditional imagery found mostly in rock paintings for the Kamatoka San shop at the Montebello Design Centre.

[To view the fascinating Montebello website, click on the link below]

http://www.montebello.co.za/

Soon followed the powerfully uplifting concept and implementation of art workshops, run by Cheryl in Ovamboland and on the Angolan border, in order to reconnect the San with their roots, provide a fulfilling and healing creative outlet, and, possibly most importantly, a source of income for these poverty stricken people.

The result is the Ekoka label which comprises of a range of products manufactured from textiles printed with imagery taken directly from the work of artists who take part in these workshops. The artists work with the linocut medium as well as oil on canvas (these works are also for sale in the Kalk Bay Modern) and earn an income from royalty payments.

The statements given by these artists on the affect these workshops and the creative outlet has had on their lives is extremely moving and as the Design Indaba approaches I will be writing about the individual artists and showcasing some of their work in my upcoming blogs.

The products are IFAT approved and are managed by Omba Art Trust in Namibia.

Bronwen Findlay

2009-12-24T04:43:00.001-08:00

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I would like to focus on each of the 3000hours artists separately so today I will be exploring some of the works of Bronwen Findlay.

Bronwen Findlay lives in Johannesburg where she teaches and paints. She acknowledges the inspiration of cloth and textiles in her work which we can see in the image below, a luxurious burst of orange and gold and reminds me of Indian sari fabric. She has achieved a sequin-like effect by piping gold paint in dots to form the pattern of a flower. In her artists statement she asserts that the manipulation of paint, pattern and colour are her chief concerns in this particular exhibition, as are also long running themes in her work.

The tantalizing quality of this little painting, just under the size of an A4 page, seems to be fully realized in the work below, which is my favourite painting in this exhibition.

Painted and piped in subtle but dazzlingly reflective shades of gold and silver, it has all the luxury of yards of billowing silk fabric. There is a quality in it over-all-surface-ness (if you’ll excuse me coining a word) that I can only recall seeing in Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings, in which strings of paint were layered over the surface of the canvas until a static-like web was formed.

One gets the distinct feeling when looking at this work that the canvas is merely a window onto an energy field – comprised of the shifting gold and silver – that is not brought to an end by the paintings dimensions, but continues to exist beyond these borders.

There is however a hint of the flower motif that runs through this body of work; large blooms and leaves are every so subtly piped onto the shining surface, but they do not sit above the surface or exist as a foreground to its background. Instead there is a unification of these two fields that is responsible for the work’s impressive unity. There is also a small square of subtle print fabric worked into the layers of paint, which just floats through, creating another mesmerizing dimension to this beautiful piece.

The last image I will be discussing today is one I find delightfully creepy. The reason for this is that, embedded into the paint is a wrinkled and characteristically textured snake skin. In a previous blog we looked at a similar small work in which, preserved in the paint, lay a half-decomposed flower and this piece is similarly eerie. The strange luxury of this discarded skin, a beautiful natural textile in its own right, is enhanced, once again, by Findlay’s use of gold, piped as in the other works into shimmering sequins of paint. The sequin effect echoes the pattern on the snakeskin and enhances its quality of abandoned finery.

Luxury, finery, natural abundance – these are all qualities I associate with this body of work. There is also the faintest hint of over-abundance, decomposition and decay which is the flipside of these earthly excesses. In Findlay’s work there is often a touch of the shadowy, a feeling of unease amongst wealth and surplus which brings a depth, an enigmatic quality, to her beautiful work.

To visit Bronwen Findlay’s webpage click on the link below.

http://www.bronwenfindlay.com/

Merle Payne - Use of Irony

2009-12-17T11:23:00.001-08:00

The next two blogs I will devote to each artist individually. While the works of Merle Payne and Bronwen Findlay have many very complementary aspects they also deserve to be investigated separately.

Today I will be looking at Merle Payne’s work and the principles behind Barok’s designs, in particular the use of irony and (sometimes dark) humour.

The image below is of a Barok cushion cover and is a particularly good example of Merle Payne’s use of irony – indeed it is a slightly disturbing piece of work.

The crowned griffin grasping a large gun, with the slogan ‘Republic of Banana’ makes for a rather sharp statement on the state of many African countries. The fact that it appears unusually on a cushion cover somehow makes the statement all the more ironic. It seem to be implied that tolerating corruption in government has become commonplace, something that we live side by side with and are de-sensitized into taking very little notice of.

The image has been repeated in the work XXX Extra Strong.

The lion is a frequently used symbol for Africa and particular the strength of Africa and its leaders. As a very recognizably African symbol it is often utilized in Barok’s proudly South African work, although the archetypal lion takes on various guises, some more threatening than others. In this piece he seems to be closely associated with violence.

The fact that Barok’s creative methods are located in the female domain seems to give the commentary a particularly cutting edge. The value of what is perceived of as ‘strength’, particularly with regards to archetypically male qualities, is severely criticized. The lion, being a predator, is an aptly chosen symbol for a system that relies on brutality and intimidation to rise to the top.

There is a strange contrast between what I can only vaguely define as the ‘innocence’ of the creative method (working with cloth, embroidery and embellishment) and the disturbing content of the work. It creates a sense of unease as well as humour in an art form that is not often noted for engendering such responses! The result is a tongue-in-cheek quirkiness that is hard to define.

It is also worth noting perhaps that these are striking and eye-catching images, very suited to bold flag-like work. In particular the image of a lion also has many more positive qualities such as bravery and great-heartedness.

Despite the presence of the fearsome banana republic griffin in XXX Extra Strong, the image of a leaping lion is undeniably a heartening one, the sort of thing one can imagine inspiring patriotism in the hearts of those inclined to it. In fact many of these wall hangings are inspired by the Fante Asafo flags of Ghana which are loosely based on military flags. Asafo are local "companies" of men that serve several purposes, from celebrating festivals, inaugurating chiefs and defending their town or village. The flags tell stories about the areas where they are from.

It seems that the women of Barok are telling a rather serious story about the world around us in a format that is unusual and eye-catching.

Bronwen Findlay and Merle Payne of Barok & Nic Bladen

2009-12-16T03:22:00.001-08:00

The first of today’s images by Bronwen Findlay is a particularly beautiful painting.

A patchwork arrangement of textiles forms an under layer, creating an interestingly pleated and rippled surface for the paint. The paint creates a glowing façade over the fabric, sometimes enhancing the patterns below, sometimes obliterating them completely. The colours are rich and glowing offset by a deep pastel background and her use of paint is luxurious and free, echoing the organic nature of the subject matter and setting it lose from the stiff representations of the fabric design.

In the little painting below we can see an interesting technique she has developed in which she actually encases plant matter in paint.

The oil paint keeps out air and moisture thus preserving the form of the beautiful spray of twigs and leaves. There is something both marvelous and vaguely disturbing in this piece of life smothered in paint. The vivid but translucent yellow of this particular piece is an apt choice in that it allows the natural colour variations of the plant to shine through to some extent, adding an extra depth to the subtle variation of tones.

This almost heirloom-inspired preservation of natural matter reminds me of the work of sculptor and jeweler Nic Bladen whose work is also featured in the Kalk Bay Modern. Bladen casts the most delicate fynbos flowers, leaves and pods in silver, creating a perfect preservation of these forms. Not only does their value lie in their exquisite beauty but also in their historical, botanical and environmental significance as records.

To see his beautiful website click on the link below.

http://www.nicbladen.com/index.html

The Barok bag seen below is a cheerful little piece that contrasts tartan, camouflage print, bright frilly trim and two ribboned medals. It is a particularly good example of Merle Payne’s technique of combining unusual materials to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Although there are four women besides Merle who are employed at Barok, she is responsible for the design of each and every item.

Her maxim though is “Many hands make a lot of work” with the result that previously unemployed rural women can now become financially independent and empowered and though their workshop is still small they are expanding slowly.

FIndlay and Payne - light and texture

2009-12-14T02:05:00.003-08:00

Today I’ll be looking at the use of texture and light reflection in Bronwen Findlay and Merle Payne’s work.

The detail below is the corner of the wall panel by Merle Payne and Barok discussed in the last blog.

While previously I focused on the originality of the design, one cannot fully appreciate textiles until one can see them close up (and ultimately – be able to touch them.) Barok uses only the finest materials to make their beautiful works, 100% cotton, silk and wool. The combination of these fabrics creates incredibly rich surface, one that is just begging to be touched. In this way the embroidery and appliqué remind me of braille and reiterate the feeling that one of the wonderful things about art of the female domain is its lack of highbrow aloofness – to be unable to touch artwork is something I am always restraining myself against and I know this is the case for many! The welcoming quality, the inclusiveness, of art of this genre makes it far more valuable and meaningful than it is often given credit for in what remains a largely patriarchal system.

Embellishment is central to Payne’s creative process and in particular she likes to fuse the textiles of different cultures creating a beautiful and moving hybrid. Sometimes her influences will be mainly African, utilizing the traditional embellishments of Xhosa, Venda, Zulu, Ndebele and Shangaan textiles, but she also collects and uses vintage fabrics which include Japanese prints.

In this particular piece, the addition of shiny light reflecting buttons adds another point of interest to the whole. Each button is individual and contains a tiny picture – worlds within worlds!

The sumptuous image below is the work of Bronwen Findlay and combines the use of textiles and paint in a way that marries the two wonderfully.

The antique gold present in the classic textile design is carried through the rest of the canvas in organic loops and swirls that echo the floral design of the cloth. The design of the cloth enters the domain of the paint and the paint runs into the fabric creating unity and a sense of flow and movement across the surface. The background is silver and an interesting tension develops between the two materials as the light catches the canvas from different angles. The use of light-reflective materials (the gold and silver paint) creates a work that interacts with light and movement.

I am reminded of a story about Monet attempting to paint pheasants. He was incredibly frustrated by the fact that if he moved back and forth the iridescent plumage flashed red or green or a combination of both but was never static. For an artist bent on pinning down the qualities of light one can imagine how frustrating this must have been.

In the case of Findlay’s painting, the work has become the pheasant (so to speak!) – It is a 3-dimensional object that reacts to light. It does not exist only on a two dimensional level as the representation of something but exists as a thing in itself - an art object rather than a straight painting.

In this respect the link to the work of Merle Payne resurfaces once again in the existence of an art-piece that is an object of value, a physical, non-abstract creation whose significance lies, not in the conceptual, but in the actual.

Bronwen Findlay and Merle Payne of Barok - 1

2009-12-13T04:00:00.001-08:00

Today I will be looking at two of the images on display at the moment in the 3000hours exhibition and giving a little background on the respective artists Merle Payne and Bronwen Findlay.

Bronwen Findlay is a well known South African artist, a painter and printmaker. She has been exhibiting frequently since 1977 and has been involved in many community upliftment workshops and projects. Although she does not wish to be exclusively defined as a feminist or female artist, much of her work is concerned with ‘the female domain’ and she seeks to challenge its status on the hierarchy of fine art practice. However paint as paint, the manipulation and interaction with it as a physical substance, is far more important to her process.

In the detail featured below we can see the delight she takes is slathering on paint freely and freshly, allowing it to have its own existence on the canvas beyond the function of representation. Texture has an all-important function in her work, inspired as it often is, by textiles.

For more information on her work see her website at the link below.

http://www.bronwenfindlay.com/

Merle Payne has been involved in many creative ventures, helping to blur the line between art and craft. For 20 years she created ‘vintage’ costumes for her company Pearls – creations so expertly made one could not tell they weren’t antiques. After working for a brief period in set-design for movies, she opened up her business incredibly successful business, Barok. Barok consists of Payne and four women from the local community of Magoebaskloof, the farm where Payne grew up. They started out making skirts end have branched out to wall panels, bags and cushion covers. All of Payne’s works on display in 3000hours are Barok products.

Shown below is one of my favourite of her wall panels.

This wonderful piece shows her quirky sense of design and sense of irony. The images of a lion and two crocodiles, both typically South African tourist images, are combined amusingly with two strange horned, humanoid creatures, who are involved in what seems to be (due to the arrows) an extremely animated conversation or perhaps a dance. A white aeroplane flying across the sky and the jaunty ‘100% local’ slogan contribute to an amusing and offbeat take on made-for-tourist products.

For an extremely interesting article on Merle Payne and Barok, featured in Dossier Magazine, click on the link below.

http://www.dossier.co.za/article/merle-payne-eclectic-emissaries

3000hours Opening

2009-12-10T09:04:00.001-08:00

Yesterday evening was the opening of a sumptuous new exhibition at the Kalk Bay Modern. It featured the elaborately embroidered textiles of Merle Payne and the rich, colourful textile-inspired paintings of Bronwen Findlay. Entitled 3000 hours, the name refers to the approximate number of hours it took to make the work on display, including the labour of the four women Merle Payne hires for her (very inspirational) company Barok.

The show really was a visual feast of textures, colours and juxtapositions. A feature shared by both artist’s work is an incredibly tempting tactile quality – at one point I really had to fight myself not to run my fingers over some glowingly vermillion, amazingly three-dimensional flowers on one of Bronwen Findlay’s paintings! In fact I must admit that when I happened to be fairly far from anyone else (a rather difficult feat for the gallery was very lively) I did ever so gently give one of them a stroke!

The juxtaposition of Payne and Findlay’s work is extremely successful and wonderfully suited, I think, to the environment of the Kalk Bay Modern, a gallery that is refreshingly devoid of any ‘white-cube’ tendencies. Both artists are inspired by traditionally female creative outlets – textiles, embellishment, and colour for beauty’s sake. The rich abundance of their work is off-set by the beautiful collection of art, craft, jewelry and pottery hosted by the gallery – they create a wonderfully authentic setting for art that is meant to be lived with and loved – not coldly observed and contemplated.

Merle Payne’s work is inspired by the rich culture of textiles in and around South Africa. The works on display in 3000 hours include her wonderfully successful Barok bags and wall hangings. Each work is painstakingly embroidered and embellished creating an extremely desirable one off piece that (in the case of the bags) is a wearable piece of art. She utilizes slogans that are often funny or ironic whilst retaining a sweetness that is charmingly innocent and zany. In particular I have my eye on a bag on which the appliquéd image of a slinky leopard sits below the words ‘The Lord is My Sheppard and I am His Leopard’.

Also featured are the textiles of Yda Walt, Veldt, the Ekoka San community project (more about that soon), Sway, Fabric Nation, and the Keiskamma Art Project. The Kalk Bay Modern is a strong supporter of local crafters and upliftment programmes.

More about these exciting artists and works soon!

2009-12-06T11:50:00.001-08:00

I have one last Peter Clarke image to share with you, a woodcut print entitled Iris (undated). This is a particularly interesting work to discuss because it is a piece that Clarke himself considers to be very technically sound. There is also a quaint story as to its origin, which seems to demonstrate the holistic nature of Clarke’s work process. He discussed this piece at the Kalk Bay Modern in an interview with the Art Times just before the opening of A Hot and Quiet Evening.

These are his words on the piece

“It’s one of my best prints; technically it is a very good print…. It happens when you use the right kind of materials, and in this case I got a nice piece of old wood – it was actually part of a bedstead which somebody had dumped and then I rescued these pieces of wood. I got this piece of wood [gesturing to the print] and cut into it; it was like slicing through butter. And when I printed it – everything fell into place. So that is one of my favourites.”

His obvious enjoyment in telling the story highlights how the creative processes of an artist like Peter Clarke are not limited to the moment of creation. The finding of treasure in what was rubbish to another, the ‘rescuing’ of the wood – all these elements were integral to the creation of this work and it can be seen in the finished product.

The delicacy of Iris is quite different to many of Clarke’s pieces. While the speedily-carved immediacy of many of his prints is a fundamental part of their charm, the intricacy of the hatching in Iris and its gracefully formed bloom shows that its production was a time consuming labour of love.

In the same interview Clarke speaks about how much of his work, both visual and literary, is concerned with space, moods and stillness. These qualities are deeply present in this beautiful image. It is imbued with wonderfully atmospheric quality, the fine cross-hatching creating a gauzy web of lights and darks. The addition of a smoky blue and a hint of palest green create the atmosphere of rain and the white flower shines out against the moody background with a freshness that you can almost smell.

I can certainly understand why it is one of Clarkes’s favourites as it is teeming with the joy of creation and is indeed both a technical and intuitive masterpiece.

(Here is a link to the video of Peter Clarke at the Kalk Bay Modern on the Art Times page)

http://www.arttimes.co.za/