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SMITH is pleased to present a group exhibition at the FNB JoburgArtFair. This group show focuses on both emerging and more established artists associated with SMITH, and delves into a broader range of mediums.
The group show will include large scale paintings by Rosie Mudge, Jeanne Gaigher and Grace Cross, detailed fineliner drawings by Marsi van de Heuvel, monotype works by Anna van der Ploeg, felt tapestry works by Michaela Younge, a gold perspex mirror wall sculpture by Michael Linders, mixed media paintings by Stephen Allwright and photography by Thandiwe Msebenzi.
Anna van der Ploeg:
“The new work is more grounded, I think. There are more recognisable elements and the characters are more like actors or participants in a scene than solitary figures hovering in space. I’m not very comfortable talking about my work, I do so with a few people, but there are things I feel more comfortable addressing with my work. I try to steer away from the personal and towards the universal, and I find that talking directly to universality by talking about universality is not the way.”
Marsi van de Heuvel:
“My work currently explores art as therapy; studying how immersive images of nature can potentially facilitate the healing process. The intention is to evoke a sense of well-being.”
Michaela Younge:
“At first glance Trinket, Basket, Grandpa’s in a Casket appears to be a scene of domestic felicity - a loving wife brings in a tray of biscuits for her husband, and yet there he is, tied up on the floor. The communication breakdown between the two people is emphasized by the fact that the man’s teeth sit in a glass of water by his head, thus further muting him - perhaps the red rose in his hand is his last-ditch attempt to speak.”
Rosie Mudge:
“The work is made with automotive paint and glitter glue on canvas - an unconventional layering of mediums outside of traditional painting practise. This large-scale abstract is an indulgence in medium and scale and a break-away from the restrictions of fine-art practice. Drawing inspiration from the colour-field painters of the 1940’s and the subsequent years of pop art and the YBA’s, these works draw from history the ghosts of Tracey Emin’s sass and Mark Rothko’s contemplative sadness. They are at once a glance at modernism as well as a cheek turned toward post modernism.”
Stephen Allwright:
“Ink forces me to commit to a particular drawing. A single sweep of the pen encompasses a distinct passage from one point to another. I have been using pen and ink predominately of late because the practice of making pictures in this medium has filtered into the way I allow a thought or emotion to emerge in my mind.”
Thandiwe Msebenzi
“This work tells the story of sexual violence against women through a personal prism. It finds its origins in my childhood memories of witnessing violations that always seemed obscured behind curtains. I grew up in a community where old men lurked in the streets looking for younger women to harass and violate. And as I became a young woman myself, I was constantly reminded that my body, and those of other young women, did not belong to us, but were rather available for consumption by the eyes and hands surrounding us.
Grace Cross
“My paintings seek to represent a cosmological world, where the ground, made
of woven fibre, becomes the landscape that my paint adheres to. The substrate and the content cannot be separated because of their symbolic nature. I work with pictures that are so full and so extensive that it is impossible to take that step backwards, screw up one’s eyes, and enjoy the whole. I want to get people to move not just their eyes but also their whole person along and around the picture plain as if they were reading a map or playing a game.”
Michael Linders
You know what you did sits in the space of subconscious guilt that comes with a certain privilege. Being aware of an advantage through exploitation. An ambiguity can arise through the general idea of personal guilt and responsibility.