IT’S THAT TIME OF THE YEAR AGAIN: WE REFLECT ON THESE PAST MONTHS TO SEE OUR UPS AND DOWNS, OUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND FAILURES, OUR BEST AND WORST. AND, OF COURSE, WE DO THIS WHILE THINKING ON WHAT’S NEXT, ON WHAT WILL THE NEW YEAR BRING US.

Jan 09, 2020    

On view until January 11, 2020, the exhibition is, in Terblanche’s words, “a celebration of all that was achieved in 2019, and looks towards 2020 with renewed energy and a sense of optimism.” Through a wide range of expressions spanning painting, sculpture, textile art, light work, drawing and photography, Rendezvous II gathers the work of of twenty-four different artists tackling themes such as identity, art history, feminism, portraiture, rituals, culture, representation, absence or mythology among others.

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Sepideh Mehraban reminds us; “It takes years to heal from trauma, but it is not impossible.”

Dec 12, 2019    

“History and the past are not one and the same.” it is this very simple yet resonant line that makes me pay attention to Sepideh Mehraban’s latest show; Until The Lions Have Their Own Historians, The History Of The Hunt Will Always Glorify The Hunter. The setting off point for this exhibition (which includes eight works of mixed media on found carpets) is, of course, a quote from Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.

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What was remembered? Sepideh Mehraban’s ‘Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter’

Dec 12, 2019    

Reading Time: 4 minutes
We begin at what appears to be another abstraction. Gobs of paint and elegant strokes, lush and formless. But take a closer look, and curious details appear: a glue spill, a newspaper column, and beneath all that, the worn, faded threads of a Persian carpet. These are the palimpsestuous works that make up Sepideh Mehraban’s latest solo show at Smith, ‘Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter’.

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Meaning mutates with Bananas and Saints Alike

Dec 11, 2019    

Katharien de Villiers’ Bananas and Saints Alike is a seedbed for humour, exploration, fantasy and joyful emergence. In this exhibition, showing at SMITH in Cape Town (till 30th Nov), de Villiers presents a collection of paintings in mixed media—fabric, wood, oil pastels, acrylic, car paint and found objects—these components that do not always exist together in a gallery setting create a complicated and irregular network of paths, inviting the viewer to join in on the journey of meaning-making through spontaneous and undirected playfulness.

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‘MOTHER IS A DRUM’ – Reflections on womanhood from a mother

Aug 01, 2019    

MOTHER IS A DRUM is a solo exhibition by Grace Cross at SMITH Studios. The show deals with the birth of the artist’s child and the solemn epiphanies of motherhood. Making use of symbols in her paintings, the viewer is confronted with images of famished mouths, a woman with breast pumps–reminding one quite starkly of the image of Rachel McAdams on the cover of Girls. Girls. Girls magazine­–as well as images of mushed up food and leaking breasts. Her paintings leave traces of ambiguity containing odd comparisons and uncomfortable smiles.

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