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We’re thrilled to showcase the work of talented, Cape Town artist: Nerina de Villiers on Cape Town Creatives. Two years ago Nerina had the opportunity to work in Antarctica as a member of the S.A. National Antarctic Expedition as Artist- in Residence. Much of her work depicts her experiences there; her response to the oceans, icebergs, marine life and the polar plateau. One of her aims is to communicate the uniqueness and fragility of the natural environment through her work.
Nerina de Villiers has exhibited her work in numerous group shows, galleries and has had 3 solo exhibitions. She also has artwork in 4 overseas countries.
To view Nerina de Villiers’ complete portfolio on Cape Town Creatives, click here.
On May 13th www.realstoriesgallery.com launched a thought-provoking international artists’ HIV prevention campaign in support of the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation. Real Stories Gallery has been inspired by the many voices of artists concerned for their friends and neighbours dealing daily with the scourge of HIV within their communities.
Real Stories Gallery is a not-for-profit online visual arts HIV prevention campaign in which visual storytelling is the medium and the artist is the messenger. Artists, as empathetic storytellers and members of their communities, are powerful messengers able to facilitate widespread and meaningful HIV prevention across the breadth and diversity of communities around the world.
The Gallery, in partnership with Art for Humanity (S.A.) and Urban Thought Arts Ensemble (U.S.A.), invites international artists to create artworks based on stories of people within their own neighborhoods and social or professional networks, whose lives are affected by HIV. These visual stories, along with a written narrative, will be exhibited on www.realstoriesgallery.com.
Submissions will be open to viewers and buyers who have interest in the visual arts. Any buyers purchasing artworks to support the artists will make an additional contribution to the cause of prevention. This will be used to strengthen the mobile community Tutu Tester program, run by the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation within South Africa.
All visitors to the site will be provided with access to HIV prevention information, which will be implicit within the visual arts and storytelling submissions; and through specially created HIV prevention videos created and gifted to the cause by international artists, poets and songwriters; and those working on the front line of HIV prevention.
“Camouflage,” Real Stories Gallery Body Painting HIV Prevention Video poem. Words, narration & Body Art by Derrick Little (artist & poet, U.S.A.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKpKT-vBjSU
“Beautiful Mosiac” Real Stories Gallery Body Painting HIV Prevention Video poem. Poem written & narrated by Kareemah El-Amin (poet, U.S.A.) Body Art, Derrick Little (artist, U.S.A.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z2k8iy2fsM
“Play It Safe,” Real Stories Gallery HIV Prevention song, T.J. Cases, Cuthouse Records (songwriter, Nigeria/U.K.) http://www.cuthouserecords.com/play_it_safe/index.html
The AVA in partnership with Spier will be hosting three solo exhibitions in April:
KARIN LIJNES
&POOOF!
To be opened by Delise Reich
GRETCHEN VAN DER BYL
WE ALREADY KNOW HOW THIS WILL END
IGSHAAN ADAMS
VINYL
The opening is at 6 pm on Tuesday, 6 April 2010.
The exhibition closes on Friday, 30 April 2010 at 1 pm
Karin Lijnes presents a ceramic and multimedia installation entitled &Pooof! in the main gallery.
Beautifully articulated ceramic bottles, labour intensive in their construction, investigate the power of branding and the effects of mass production. A master of her craft, Lijnes utilises the traditional language of ceramic combined with the contemporary language of multimedia in an exhibition that brings to light the discarded in our society.
Gretchen van der Byl presents We Already Know How This Will End in the Long Gallery.
This body of work on paper negotiates the beginning and the end of everything – every beginning contingent upon an inevitable ending. Using these ideas as parentheses, her works attempt to articulate the sweet futility of our attempt to negotiate some sort of meaningful existence in the brief interim between being and not-being.
Igshaan Adams presents his first solo exhibition Vinyl in the Artstrip.
Vinyl negotiates the politics of identity and community. Old vinyl is sensitively reconstituted from utilitarian flooring into wall based mixed media work.
Association for Visual Arts Gallery
35 Church Street, Cape Town, South Africa
Gallery hours: Weekdays 10h00 to 17h00,
Saturdays 10h00 to 13h00
Phone: +27-21 424-7436,
Fax: +27-21 423-2637,
avaart@iafrica.com
www.ava.co.za
Kelly Wainwright, artist and four Cape Town Photographers have put together a fresh and intriguing photo series of images shot all over Cape Town, including one of Desmond Tutu jumping on a bed and 6 oak trees in the Company’s Gardens covered in fabrics of all kinds during Cape Town’s Fashion Week. They will be selling a handful of their limited edition works through their newly launched website www.playjumpeat.com. A showcase of the BED JUMP series can also be viewed at Exposure Gallery, Old Biscuit Mill from April 10th. A percentage of the proceeds of all these sales will go towards the Tertia Kindo Arts Project, a children’s dance school in Ocean View, Cape Town.
You were born in America. What brought you to Cape Town?
My husband is South African.
How would you describe the creative landscape in Cape Town?
Stunning.
Tell us more about your latest installation/photography project ‘Play Jump Eat’.
This project started off as very vivid images in my head that I KNEW I HAD to do! I phoned Photographer Inge Prins to see if she’d be interested in getting on board, and we both just dove in, with no money up-front.
What’s behind the name and what inspired you to create these works?
The 5 words behind every image (circumstantially) are: play joy beauty abundance juxtaposition.
PLAY is an obvious inherent theme in every image. JUMP obviously stems from our BED JUMP series. And EAT basically symbolizes the indulgence and abundace factor in the work.
Who else was involved in this project?
Inge Prins, Charley Pollard, Antonia Steyn, and Saul Wainwright were my photographers.
They had their own assistants, and I brought friends/assistants along to every shoot. I worked with almost 100 models, and a smattering of make-up artists, etc. The OAK COUTURE section of the project involved around 30 “Cape Town Creatives” ranging from architects to pastry chefs to fashion designers. I designed it as a charette (aka: quick design) collaboration. We also had numerous sponsors on board.
What sort of response have you had to this project so far?
It’s been overwhelming. We’ve been in close to 30 media stories, including a 2-page spread in Design Indaba magazine, a 1-page in Elle Decor, ETV, British Airways magazine, and a whole lot of people off the street jumping on the bed with us at INFECTING THE CITY. It’s been lovely.
Any ideas of where you want to take it in the future?
I may or may not take the BED JUMP idea a bit more globally. I’ll need sponsorship ahead of time. I also have countless tricks up my sleeve that aren’t necessarily centered around photography, but still around “play, joy, beauty, abundance, and juxtaposition”
But- for now – we have just launched www.playjumpeat.com where a handful of our limited edition prints are ready to purchase! We will also be showing our BED JUMP series at EXPOSURE Gallery at the Biscuit Mill, starting April 10th. A percentage of the proceeds of all of these sales will go towards the Tertia Kindo Arts Project, a children’s dance school in Ocean View.
In your opinion, does creativity have the potential to transform society?
Absolutely!
Warren Editions will be giving a Basic Etching Workshop running over four Tuesdays in May 2010.
The techniques that will be covered are hard ground, soft ground and aquatint.
The dates, times and techniques are as follows:
- 4 May 2010 / 8:30 – 12:30 > Hard ground
- 11 May 2010 / 8:30 – 12:30 > Soft ground
- 18 May 2010 / 8:30 – 12:30 > Aquatint
- 25 May 2010 / 8:30 – 12:30 > Combination of hard ground, soft ground and aquatint
Cost: R 1,350.00 > This amount covers all 4 days and all materials are included.
What is needed > Your energy and ideas.
At the end of the workshop each participant would have made 4 different etchings, representing 3 techniques explored separately and 1 etching where 2 – 3 of the taught techniques are explored.
To book your place for the workshop please email: we@warreneditions.com
Threshold sees four artists, Anton Brink, Brad Gray, Anthony Scullion and Peter van Straten, use distortion, fantasy, surrealism and satire (amongst other devices) to investigate the realm between sanity and insanity, dreams and reality, violence and innocence. Despite distinct differences in their technical and philosophical approach to painting, all four find kinship in manifesting images that appear hallucinatory or dream-like and yet somehow reflect a tangible emotional and psychologically reality.
Threshold opens on Wednesday 31 March at 18h30 and ends on Thursday 15 April.
Venue Details:
Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town.
3 Portswood Road, V&A Waterfront.
+27 21 418 4527 ctgallery@everard.co.za
The winners of the Spier Contemporary 2010 Competition were announced at the City Hall launch on 13 March 2010 in Cape Town.
The prizes awarded consist of a combination of five cash prizes, worth R500 000 in total, selected by the judging team and seven international artist-in-residency prizes made by the individual residency programmes. In addition, a ‘People’s Choice’ Award (based on votes by those visiting the Exhibition) will be given at the end of the Cape Town leg of the Exhibition.
The cash prize-winners are, in no particular order:
Araminta de Clermont – (photography)
Dave Robertson – (photography)
Jessica Gregory & Zen Marie – (video installation)
Christopher Swift – (mixed media)
Hasan and Husain Essop – (photography)
The Artist-in-Residency were awarded as follows:
Gyeonggi Creation Center, South Korea (two awards provided)- Lindi Arbi and Mohau Modisakeng
The Instituto Sacatar and the Sacatar Foundation, Bahia, Brazil (two awards provided)- Sicelo Ziqubu and Jacki McInnes
18th Street Arts Centre in Los Angeles, California, USA – Mlu Zondi
Thamdigi Foundation Prize in Arnhem, Netherlands (two awards provided)- Angela De Jesus and Johann van der Schijff
The judges, N’Goné Fall, RoseLee Goldberg and Mark Coetzee, flew in from their respective international bases to deliberate over the work in the week leading up to the launch of the Exhibition. Their choices reflect the high standard of new media works submitted to the 2010 competition. The judges were not given any specific criteria to assist them in their choices.
The artist-in-residency awards were chosen by representatives of the organisations providing the residencies. Each residency award affords the winning artist an excellent opportunity to simply be artists in a new and stimulating environment, whilst also developing invaluable connections.
By nature of its content as a contemporary art exhibition, the Spier Contemporary 2010 reflects South African life in all its forms. Strong themes that emerged from the work include a search for identity, memory, critic of the state and our leadership, FIFA World Cup representation and interpretations of urban landscapes.
The Africa Centre, which developed the Exhibition, is conscious of the need to engage with a wider audience for art. To this end, the Spier Contemporary 2010 is housed at the Cape Town City Hall; close to commuter routes and in the midst of a retail, office and residential mix that is also a primary port of call for tourists. Entrance is free and the Exhibition is open from 10h00 till 18h00 seven days a week. A café and shop also share the premises. The Spier Contemporary 2010 is also expecting to host 3,500 school learners at the Exhibition in partnership with the Ibhabhathane Project, funded by a grant from the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF).
The Spier Contemporary opened to the public at 10h00 on Sunday, 14th March 2010.
For more information on the project, and the exhibition, visit www.spiercontemporary.co.za
Fiona Gordon: Heads will be turned all over Cape Town’s city centre this week, as strangely dressed characters do even stranger things in and around the city’s public spaces.
In an effort to ‘encourage expression of creative thought’ Spier supports this public arts festival, ‘Infecting the City’, (curated by performance artist extraordinaire, Brett Bailey) as part of their community social investment.
With ‘Human Rites’ as the 2010 theme, and involvement from some of the city’s most prominent and prolific theatre-makers, it seems many of the pieces presented acknowledge aspects of this city’s rich and colourful history, and heritage combinations. This social art encourages different perspectives, and seems to seek to acknowledge the lives and struggles of others, and their impact on our presents, and futures.
I saw two pieces which used open spaces, which in itself from an accessibility and audience development perspective, is a great thing. But I was most grateful for the innovation of the third – a site-specific work that makes use of a monument as a performance space, in a way that some may deem disrespectful, but really to my mind, better fulfils the brief of ‘challenging us to think, reflect and communicate in uniquely powerful ways’.
It’s worth making an effort to attend some of the things on offer. Even if it’s just to watch the passers-by be forced to engage with the space, or happenings in it, in a different way than usual.
“Infection” may have negative connotations, but I certainly left my little sojourn in the city feeling inspired – infected with the positivity that comes from experiencing art.
And even the weather played along providing some of its own drama – threatening to rain out the second performance I saw, while I watched the third, a mere hour later, feeling the rays of the scorching sun. Ah, Cape Town…
Performances and installations happen daily 13-20 February, throughout the CBD, and are almost all free of charge. See www.infectingthecity.com for more details.
Fiona Gordon
fiona@artslink.co.za
www.artslink.co.za
STUTTERHEIME, PENELOPE
‘Sun Shines’, oil on canvas, 70 x 90 cm
The Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town is delighted to invite you to view new works by Penelope Stutterheime.
Please join them at 18:30 on Thursday 18th February at 3 Portswood Road, V&A Waterfront.
In her latest works, Stutterheime makes use of her distinctive impasto application of oil paint, carefully building up layers of vibrant colour to create a series of richly glowing paintings. With their thick and haptic quality, they reveal an exploration of the subconscious using fluid symbols and forms, to which viewers respond emotionally & experientially.
The exhibition concludes on the 4th March.
For more information, please contact: +27 21 418 4527
ctgallery@everard.co.za
www.everard-read-capetown.co.za
Cape Town is one of South Africa’s most important creative hubs. Cape Town Creatives was started with the vision to centralise information relating to the creative industry in Cape Town. Here is a list of excellent artists, sculptors and printmakers based in Cape Town. Click on the names below to view the full portfolios on the Cape Town Creatives website.
