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Journal
Homage
The landscapes of South Africa are still wild enough to be magical. They are the kind of places that inspire reverence, in whatever form one chooses. The act of looking, feeling and making is one of paying homage. I want my work to carry the feeling of the life in the land; the curious little cool spots that nurture strange, endemic plants, and the possibility of discoveries that reveal things we did not know, the echo of patterns in the microscopic and the macroscopic. I can’t paint that kind of detail, but I can suggest that it is there – illusions that reveal biological truth.
There is a strange duality to this - examining places with an artist’s eye (witnessing the tiny things, identifying patterns, pondering each colour) while at the same time, painting myself out of the picture*. Of course, I am invested in every mark, measuring the pulse of something fragile and pausing with it to take a deep breath, witnessing. Our experiences of landscape are intimations of both our significance and our insignificance – an idea that is increasingly percolating to the surface of our consciousness.
*I recently heard artist Corey Hardeman use this phrase and I couldn’t resist borrowing it.
There is a strange duality to this - examining places with an artist’s eye (witnessing the tiny things, identifying patterns, pondering each colour) while at the same time, painting myself out of the picture*. Of course, I am invested in every mark, measuring the pulse of something fragile and pausing with it to take a deep breath, witnessing. Our experiences of landscape are intimations of both our significance and our insignificance – an idea that is increasingly percolating to the surface of our consciousness.
*I recently heard artist Corey Hardeman use this phrase and I couldn’t resist borrowing it.
Balm
I was away long enough for the familiar landscape of the potholes to have changed. Now I am having to follow the lead of the drivers in front of me.
A disarmament had happened in me and I wasn’t ready for a return to the wild ride that is this complex, fabulous country. A tiny island in the middle of the Indian Ocean is of course an unfair comparison. The faint smell of incense drifting off the beach at sunrise on the morning that we left, women wearing shimmering saris setting up little shrines offering fruit, flowers, coins. Modest dreams.
The temperate breeze and the eye-watering blues were fresh in my mind as the traffic came to a dead halt on the four-lane South African freeway because of a violent cash-in-transit heist. No assistance, just hundreds of vehicles trying to worm their way out of the jam, parked at odd angles like one of those car park puzzle games, everyone believing that they could find the best route through, making plans, finding gaps. It’s what we do here.
The rest of the trip home felt crowded with contradictions, my attention wrestled away from the heart-breakingly beautiful landscape by adrenaline-fuelled speeding, the wild-eyed car guard brandishing a whip. We were travelling in a full minibus taxi and everyone had an opinion. Entitlement matched ignorance, silence spoke loudly. I pulled my jacket over my head and watched an episode of The Crown - a strange balm, like pale pink chamomile ointment on a blue bottle sting.
Finally home, I sank into the couch on the deck, drinking in the dense forest while my brain tried to make sense of it all. But there is no making sense. The Wood Owl called, clearing the air. The bushbabies became curious and crept down the fig tree to peer at me, before heading out into the night to forage. Early the next morning I limped to the garage to revive my neglected car. Before inflating the tyres, Mduduzi looked me in the eye “How was your night last night, was your sleep peaceful?”
A disarmament had happened in me and I wasn’t ready for a return to the wild ride that is this complex, fabulous country. A tiny island in the middle of the Indian Ocean is of course an unfair comparison. The faint smell of incense drifting off the beach at sunrise on the morning that we left, women wearing shimmering saris setting up little shrines offering fruit, flowers, coins. Modest dreams.
The temperate breeze and the eye-watering blues were fresh in my mind as the traffic came to a dead halt on the four-lane South African freeway because of a violent cash-in-transit heist. No assistance, just hundreds of vehicles trying to worm their way out of the jam, parked at odd angles like one of those car park puzzle games, everyone believing that they could find the best route through, making plans, finding gaps. It’s what we do here.
The rest of the trip home felt crowded with contradictions, my attention wrestled away from the heart-breakingly beautiful landscape by adrenaline-fuelled speeding, the wild-eyed car guard brandishing a whip. We were travelling in a full minibus taxi and everyone had an opinion. Entitlement matched ignorance, silence spoke loudly. I pulled my jacket over my head and watched an episode of The Crown - a strange balm, like pale pink chamomile ointment on a blue bottle sting.
Finally home, I sank into the couch on the deck, drinking in the dense forest while my brain tried to make sense of it all. But there is no making sense. The Wood Owl called, clearing the air. The bushbabies became curious and crept down the fig tree to peer at me, before heading out into the night to forage. Early the next morning I limped to the garage to revive my neglected car. Before inflating the tyres, Mduduzi looked me in the eye “How was your night last night, was your sleep peaceful?”
Elemental
They had filled out and were glowing like a childhood Enid Blyton fantasy. Since then lichen paintings have filled the gaps, allowing me to indulge my need for rich colour and the way in which natural rhythms, cycles translate into pattern, on a macro and a micro scale.
They occupy a space that feels untouched by the real world; where I can participate in thousands of mini-relationships, each site-specific. The same lichen in light and in shadow will behave differently. Some colonise new territory, riding roughshod over all others. Others will carefully occupy spaces that are unwanted by occupants of the rock or bark. I am amused by their strong sense of belonging.
Once I saw lichens, they couldn't be unseen. Their essential form and growth patterns is something we all know, deep down inside where things are elemental.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Student Science says a lichen is an organism that consists of a fungus and an alga living together in a symbiotic relationship. The alga supplies nutrients by photosynthesis, while the fungus shades the alga from excessive sunlight and supplies water by absorbing water vapor from the air. Lichens often live on rocks and tree bark and can thrive in extreme environments, such as mountaintops and the polar regions.
They occupy a space that feels untouched by the real world; where I can participate in thousands of mini-relationships, each site-specific. The same lichen in light and in shadow will behave differently. Some colonise new territory, riding roughshod over all others. Others will carefully occupy spaces that are unwanted by occupants of the rock or bark. I am amused by their strong sense of belonging.
Once I saw lichens, they couldn't be unseen. Their essential form and growth patterns is something we all know, deep down inside where things are elemental.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Student Science says a lichen is an organism that consists of a fungus and an alga living together in a symbiotic relationship. The alga supplies nutrients by photosynthesis, while the fungus shades the alga from excessive sunlight and supplies water by absorbing water vapor from the air. Lichens often live on rocks and tree bark and can thrive in extreme environments, such as mountaintops and the polar regions.
Wild Places and Other Feelings
Curiously, we occasionally feel we already know a new place, or that it knows us. An impassive landscape becomes the channel for our intuition. I wonder if this intimate relationship exists because our evolution is interwoven with being attuned to the horizon, to the way clouds form as air collides with a mountain, with the angle of the sun as it catches the light-seeking cabbage tree in the deepest part of a valley. Increasingly, we snatch these connections through a moving car window or steal a glimpse of a beloved place by scrolling through photos on our mobile phones. Access to untamed places is becoming constrained.
Returning to pastels, a medium that I last used thirty years ago, I have relished their immediacy and grappled with their fragility. These clunky sticks of pigment have an intrinsic innocence, perhaps because of the limitations of mark and colour palette. My heart was set on working with the constraints of the medium. The more I whittled the work down to an instant that would have passed only seconds later as the light changed, the closer I got to a universal feeling. Our experiences of landscape are intimations of both our significance and our insignificance - an idea that is increasingly percolating to the surface of our consciousness.
Returning to pastels, a medium that I last used thirty years ago, I have relished their immediacy and grappled with their fragility. These clunky sticks of pigment have an intrinsic innocence, perhaps because of the limitations of mark and colour palette. My heart was set on working with the constraints of the medium. The more I whittled the work down to an instant that would have passed only seconds later as the light changed, the closer I got to a universal feeling. Our experiences of landscape are intimations of both our significance and our insignificance - an idea that is increasingly percolating to the surface of our consciousness.
Drawings for Thinking
Obsessively exploring the beaches of northern KwaZulu-Natal as a child, I overlooked the limpets shells because they seemed common, rough and battered. The cowrie shells beckoned with their polished domes and gleaming teeth. I collected, categorized and even drew my prized collection.
And then, earlier this year while walking the wild Soetwater beach on the Cape Peninsula, limpet shells caught my attention. They suddenly seemed miraculous, a metaphor for coping with adversity. They are plastered to the rocks in places and patterns that seem random but are very specific, their shapes designed for the place they occupy in the inter-tidal zone. They fight territorial battles, tend their algae gardens by pruning and fertilising, and guillotine aggressors appendages by slamming their shells down on them. Kelp Limpets are shaped to fit on the stem of the Kelp and only one occupies each stem. If the Kelp holdfast breaks free in a storm, the limpet senses the change in pressure and parachutes down to the seabed to start searching for an unoccupied stem. South Africa has the highest biodiversity of limpets in the world.
I took a bucket of (dead) limpet shells home to Mpumalanga and began working. Through drawing, I got to know these creatures intimately and they took on a sacredness, as can anything in the natural world if we pay attention. I kept drawing, moving from biological observation to a more playful space in which these wonderful shapes started to enjoy whimsical relationships and became drawings for thinking.
And then, earlier this year while walking the wild Soetwater beach on the Cape Peninsula, limpet shells caught my attention. They suddenly seemed miraculous, a metaphor for coping with adversity. They are plastered to the rocks in places and patterns that seem random but are very specific, their shapes designed for the place they occupy in the inter-tidal zone. They fight territorial battles, tend their algae gardens by pruning and fertilising, and guillotine aggressors appendages by slamming their shells down on them. Kelp Limpets are shaped to fit on the stem of the Kelp and only one occupies each stem. If the Kelp holdfast breaks free in a storm, the limpet senses the change in pressure and parachutes down to the seabed to start searching for an unoccupied stem. South Africa has the highest biodiversity of limpets in the world.
I took a bucket of (dead) limpet shells home to Mpumalanga and began working. Through drawing, I got to know these creatures intimately and they took on a sacredness, as can anything in the natural world if we pay attention. I kept drawing, moving from biological observation to a more playful space in which these wonderful shapes started to enjoy whimsical relationships and became drawings for thinking.
An Interview
You have lived in Mpumalanga for over twenty years now. How long for you has the land been a source of inspiration, a significant subject for creative exploration?
The land has crept into my work since I moved to Mpumalanga. As a student (UKZN, Pietermaritzburg) and for a few years after, my work was largely what I would call introvert, still life and interiors, but Mpumalanga in the early nineties wasn’t a place that nurtured navel-gazing and angst. It was sink or swim, I needed a shift in focus and there was this amazing, slightly foreign landscape just outside my door. Also, it was the first time I had lived in an environment where many people make their living from the land.
As well as in your home base of Mpumalanga, you have painted images of the land in places like St Lucia, the Free State and the Karoo. On a general level, do you come across landscape sites while travelling? Or do you specifically go to a place intending to make artwork there, and if so, what would most likely inform that choice?
I tend to stumble upon places that generate energy in my work. I have never consciously been to a place with art-making in mind, but of course, once I am in an environment I am like a sponge. The Free State was a surprise to me as I went on a whim with my partner, for something related to his agricultural work and found a place that was grappling with its sense of belonging. Signs of that struggle were so vividly marked on the land in the form of fences, settlements, graves, paths… Karoo is known as big-sky country, but instead I was blown away by the vegetation, the struggle for survival that creates the patterns and textures. Today, I happen to be in Cape Town. Driving past Camps Bay, I saw the kelp shifting in the gentle waves and thought I saw refugees floating in the Mediterranean and waving for help. That’s because my head is full of what I am working on right now.
Your work is about so much more than just reproducing ‘the landscape’, it holds the land as metaphor – for example, despite portraying a landscape with no actual human form, you suggested the past presence of people in your 2010 suite of lithos Remnants on the Land. Here your placement of stones suggest humankind having manipulated the stones and rocks to create somewhere for themselves to live, to mark spiritual spaces, and as cairns or final resting places. Yet now natural elements in the land are beginning to reclaim themselves. About these works, you have said that “when humans have annihilated themselves the earth will endure and remain”. In his book Quantum Theology, Diarmuid O’Murchu says a similar thing, that the earth “is not purposefully antihuman, but as long as we continue to change the global environment against its preferences, we encourage our replacement with a more environmentally benevolent species”. Your work is not overtly environmental, but is this a consideration or a subtheme? Would you comment on these statements in relation to your work?
Environmental issues crept into my work under the cover of ‘the landscape’. I remember very early landscapes when I first focused on how farming eroded the natural landscape (“Itala Ghosts” comes to mind, now a proclaimed nature reserve, but with clear scars on the land from past farming). It has become common knowledge that everything we do impacts on our environment, on a human scale as well as on a global scale. Even my ‘simple’ landscapes (the Landscape Alone series of drawings comes to mind) are environmental statements because they have the feeling of documentation of a pristine environment. We all know that the space where we can be completely alone is becoming, on many levels, a rare thing. Probably my most overtly ‘environmental’ work is "At Our Peak”, a painting of a deliberately precarious pile of rocks that could topple at any moment. This pile of rocks serves no real purpose, and yet a lot of energy was required to make it. The fires are burning in the background to add to the feeling of reaching the end of a process.
In your 2013 suite of lithos – the Karoo works (2013) – there is no sense of human presence, either past or present. You commented that the work is purely about the land and how it gave you pause to think. Although seemingly empty, we realise that the land as such is never empty, just that from the self-absorbed perspective of much of humankind it is considered empty without tangible – and the case of an artwork, visible - evidence of our presence. Would you say that this meditative experience you had of the land when making these works was a necessary stage in your conceptual shifting? That is, from looking at evidence of a more settled though earlier human presence in Remnants on the Land to considering the strength inherent in an essentially unchanging natural landscape as witness to the transitory quality of human presence, as either inhabitants or refugees?
This suite of lithographs followed the Landscape Alone series of drawings I referred to. I was drawn to the idea of being alone and consequently without the trappings that tend to shield us from realizing how little control we really have. I likened it to that game children play when they attempt to think about nothing, but realize that it is impossible. Naturally, this leads to meditation in adults and I was looking for this in these drawings and lithos. I found it fascinating how tenuous this sense of being alone without human interference was. One tiny shift in the spacing of the clumps of grass and the human eye will read it as a path. Truthfully, all art is about the artist, how we fit into our space. So, yes, the ‘alone’ landscapes are an important part of my conceptual shifting. I thought when I started making them that they would be a kind of rest, but they wrestled their way into my thinking. We really aren’t as important or as strong as we imagine we are…
Your new painting Transient, using landscape and cloth in a formally more conventional way, to me suggests looking out through curtaining, of being in a safe place while looking out as what seems to be a vast and inhospitable land. Yet again, we know how tenuous is the notion of home. Understanding that we bring our own life experiences with us when engaging with artwork, what would be your response to my associations with that work.
I am glad that you have asked this question! I have been fascinated by responses to this painting. On the one extreme is the viewer who feels they are sitting in a safari lodge, looking out over a pristine environment (while the curtains flutter gently in the breeze) and feeling comforted by how little human interference is visible. On the other extreme is the view that these cloths belong to women on a daunting journey, resting before they cross this inhospitable land. I was very deliberate with my choices; the cloths are placed like stage curtains, to create the feeling that something important is about to happen. The cloths are mismatched, so they aren’t really curtains. The landscape is the Kruger National Park, close to my home. It is a place that I revere for its pristine quietness, but can also see as a frightening and inhospitable, depending on what experience one brings to it.
The work you created for WELCOME STRANGER also deals with the notion of traces of presence, although here the presence specifically refers to refugees. As we know, throughout history refugees have been created through human violence, whether political or cultural, and is a universal state. But your work is not about the causes for the movement of refugees, but about their silent and fearful migration, their attempts to remain alive yet unobserved. Your discovery of their clothes, shoes and bags while you were on a beach in Sicily speaks of the poignancy inherent in simple everyday possessions. Could you describe how this finding affected you, and how it shifted your approach to the landscape of your home?
I sometimes refer to my life as before and after the refugees. Now, I have a heightened awareness of what the Kruger Park would feel like to a refugee passing through on foot, as thousands have done. Or what a dust road in the Karoo would look like if I didn’t have a cosy bungalow to return to (“Tomorrow”). Home and shelter is such a profound need in all of us. To be without it is for many, unimaginable. This makes it easy to distance ourselves from displaced people. These neatly folded clothes didn’t allow me to distance myself. The desperation that causes people to be unable to stay where they belong, was all there in those folded clothes.
You speak of African cloths such as the kind you have painted into the landscape as offering protection, yet also showing the women refugees’ attempt to hold onto their senses of identity through colour and beauty. Three of your works Sicily I, Sicily and Whisper have an awareness of these cloths – fabric by its very nature being as biodegradable as human presence and identity – as having become integrated into the land, almost as fossils. Would you say that the fragility of cloth and the knowledge underpinning fossil formation speaks of an impression that the existence of the human race is temporary on the Earth?
I was thinking on a smaller scale in these works. Yes, as a race we are probably temporary, but the cloth is meant as a reference to the fragility and the tenacity of the existence of a refugee. This year, roughly 120 000 people have been rescued from the Mediterranean by Italian ships. We can talk endlessly about the reasons for the existence of refugees, but it is only when we realise that these are individuals (someone with a size 6 shoe, who likes the colour orange or pink, for example) that we will start to feel the problem. It is truly tragic that in some cases, the fabric (clothes, shoes) was less easily lost than the human lives.
Could you speak a little about other works, such as Marikana, The Shore and again Sicily I, which seem to have a subterranean glow. Could you speak a little about that sense of underground light that you have created?
I made “Marikana” before I went to Sicily, but have included it in the Welcome Stranger show because it is about the same issues of dispossession and betrayal. Most miners are migrants and I am sure they would rather be home, where they couldn’t stay. I was intrigued by media images of the striking miners sitting on the rocky outcrops. The solid, ancient rock contrasted starkly with the transient presence of the miners, yet their steadfastness was echoed in the rock. This particular koppie is close to my home and it burns every year. It always has a primal feeling for me. I like your reference to a “subterranean glow”. As I paint less directly from life my work seems to have less of a single light source and more of a general ‘glow’. I would also like to think there is some echo of patterns and rhythms that occur in all things natural.
Also a painting with that glow, and the only one that contains the human figure is Stay A While. Could you comment on your decision to include the figure in just this one work?
My daughter modelled for this work, but really it is me. When I return from travelling, I pass through this valley and then I know I am close to home. This time, returning from Sicily and with the idea of migrancy in mind, I felt a strong sense of belonging. I think the figure was necessary to convey the weight of this awareness. She is stitched in to the landscape with brushmarks and she is definitely not going anywhere. It is a bit as if she is lying in state, in her final resting place. So be it.
And a discernible human presence is evident in the two monotypes In the Shadows I and In the Shadows III through your inclusion of shadows of figures?
Yes, but these figures are far more fleeting than the figure in “Stay a While”. I used shadow to suggest impermanence and anonymity. Ironically, refugees depend on anonymity while they are on the move. When they reach the place where they are seeking asylum/refuge, they depend on being recognized by the authorities.
Except for the above two prints, in some of the works the cloths appear to be floating, in some they appear integrated into the landscape, yet throughout a strange tension has developed as in each of these states there is a hint of the other?
What you have described is synonymous with migrancy and with being a refugee. I can only imagine how those few possessions taken from home become like a life raft. Painting “Welcome Stranger” was an absorbing process. It took a long time and at times I thought I was being silly, devoting so much energy to these little pieces of floating cloth. By the end of the process, I felt a tiny glimmer of satisfaction because I had walked that fine line between permanent and fleeting, naïve and reality…
Would you mind sharing your creative process when you arrive at a place you wish to paint – do you sketch/paint/photograph the land while there as well as work afterwards in your studio?
Yes, all of the above. Most of my work involves a lot of studio time. If I work outdoors, it is usually in pen and ink, charcoal or pencil. I take photographs and sometimes rely on these for information (the growth pattern of a plant, the shape of a skyline) but find that now I work more from memory. The painting “Sicily” is painted entirely from memory and I think one can feel that. These days I find that seeing the landscape is only a tiny part of the process. It is as if my vocabulary has increased and I draw on things in me that I may not even know are there. The landscape is often the starting point, but as my body of work grows, I feel like a GPS with lots of blue-highlighted, previously travelled roads criss-crossing the map. They sometimes obscure the intended path but they can make a richer journey.
Finally on another note, you have kindly agreed to allow outoftheCUBE to feature your exhibition online while it is showing at Glynis Blomkamp’s Gallery 2 in Johannesburg with her agreement. At outoftheCUBE, we believe that online exhibitions can’t replace a physical exhibition, but that each could add to and complement the other. Could you share a few of your thoughts about online exhibiting, the pros and cons?
One of the delights of 2014 is our access to information. I revel in it. There is no way to replace standing in front of the original work (my work is sometimes big, so the reduction in scale is significant), but it is a privilege to be able to reach a larger audience via other media. It should indeed work both ways, so that more people are encouraged to go into galleries after seeing work on their screens. In a way, artists are going to need to work even harder to be heard. People in general are becoming spoilt with so many instant images accessible at a push of a button and we may forget what it takes to create a strong image. Seeing the work in any form is better than not seeing it at all (well, hopefully) and will extend the conversation, as we are doing in this interview!
Thank you, Karin!
The land has crept into my work since I moved to Mpumalanga. As a student (UKZN, Pietermaritzburg) and for a few years after, my work was largely what I would call introvert, still life and interiors, but Mpumalanga in the early nineties wasn’t a place that nurtured navel-gazing and angst. It was sink or swim, I needed a shift in focus and there was this amazing, slightly foreign landscape just outside my door. Also, it was the first time I had lived in an environment where many people make their living from the land.
As well as in your home base of Mpumalanga, you have painted images of the land in places like St Lucia, the Free State and the Karoo. On a general level, do you come across landscape sites while travelling? Or do you specifically go to a place intending to make artwork there, and if so, what would most likely inform that choice?
I tend to stumble upon places that generate energy in my work. I have never consciously been to a place with art-making in mind, but of course, once I am in an environment I am like a sponge. The Free State was a surprise to me as I went on a whim with my partner, for something related to his agricultural work and found a place that was grappling with its sense of belonging. Signs of that struggle were so vividly marked on the land in the form of fences, settlements, graves, paths… Karoo is known as big-sky country, but instead I was blown away by the vegetation, the struggle for survival that creates the patterns and textures. Today, I happen to be in Cape Town. Driving past Camps Bay, I saw the kelp shifting in the gentle waves and thought I saw refugees floating in the Mediterranean and waving for help. That’s because my head is full of what I am working on right now.
Your work is about so much more than just reproducing ‘the landscape’, it holds the land as metaphor – for example, despite portraying a landscape with no actual human form, you suggested the past presence of people in your 2010 suite of lithos Remnants on the Land. Here your placement of stones suggest humankind having manipulated the stones and rocks to create somewhere for themselves to live, to mark spiritual spaces, and as cairns or final resting places. Yet now natural elements in the land are beginning to reclaim themselves. About these works, you have said that “when humans have annihilated themselves the earth will endure and remain”. In his book Quantum Theology, Diarmuid O’Murchu says a similar thing, that the earth “is not purposefully antihuman, but as long as we continue to change the global environment against its preferences, we encourage our replacement with a more environmentally benevolent species”. Your work is not overtly environmental, but is this a consideration or a subtheme? Would you comment on these statements in relation to your work?
Environmental issues crept into my work under the cover of ‘the landscape’. I remember very early landscapes when I first focused on how farming eroded the natural landscape (“Itala Ghosts” comes to mind, now a proclaimed nature reserve, but with clear scars on the land from past farming). It has become common knowledge that everything we do impacts on our environment, on a human scale as well as on a global scale. Even my ‘simple’ landscapes (the Landscape Alone series of drawings comes to mind) are environmental statements because they have the feeling of documentation of a pristine environment. We all know that the space where we can be completely alone is becoming, on many levels, a rare thing. Probably my most overtly ‘environmental’ work is "At Our Peak”, a painting of a deliberately precarious pile of rocks that could topple at any moment. This pile of rocks serves no real purpose, and yet a lot of energy was required to make it. The fires are burning in the background to add to the feeling of reaching the end of a process.
In your 2013 suite of lithos – the Karoo works (2013) – there is no sense of human presence, either past or present. You commented that the work is purely about the land and how it gave you pause to think. Although seemingly empty, we realise that the land as such is never empty, just that from the self-absorbed perspective of much of humankind it is considered empty without tangible – and the case of an artwork, visible - evidence of our presence. Would you say that this meditative experience you had of the land when making these works was a necessary stage in your conceptual shifting? That is, from looking at evidence of a more settled though earlier human presence in Remnants on the Land to considering the strength inherent in an essentially unchanging natural landscape as witness to the transitory quality of human presence, as either inhabitants or refugees?
This suite of lithographs followed the Landscape Alone series of drawings I referred to. I was drawn to the idea of being alone and consequently without the trappings that tend to shield us from realizing how little control we really have. I likened it to that game children play when they attempt to think about nothing, but realize that it is impossible. Naturally, this leads to meditation in adults and I was looking for this in these drawings and lithos. I found it fascinating how tenuous this sense of being alone without human interference was. One tiny shift in the spacing of the clumps of grass and the human eye will read it as a path. Truthfully, all art is about the artist, how we fit into our space. So, yes, the ‘alone’ landscapes are an important part of my conceptual shifting. I thought when I started making them that they would be a kind of rest, but they wrestled their way into my thinking. We really aren’t as important or as strong as we imagine we are…
Your new painting Transient, using landscape and cloth in a formally more conventional way, to me suggests looking out through curtaining, of being in a safe place while looking out as what seems to be a vast and inhospitable land. Yet again, we know how tenuous is the notion of home. Understanding that we bring our own life experiences with us when engaging with artwork, what would be your response to my associations with that work.
I am glad that you have asked this question! I have been fascinated by responses to this painting. On the one extreme is the viewer who feels they are sitting in a safari lodge, looking out over a pristine environment (while the curtains flutter gently in the breeze) and feeling comforted by how little human interference is visible. On the other extreme is the view that these cloths belong to women on a daunting journey, resting before they cross this inhospitable land. I was very deliberate with my choices; the cloths are placed like stage curtains, to create the feeling that something important is about to happen. The cloths are mismatched, so they aren’t really curtains. The landscape is the Kruger National Park, close to my home. It is a place that I revere for its pristine quietness, but can also see as a frightening and inhospitable, depending on what experience one brings to it.
The work you created for WELCOME STRANGER also deals with the notion of traces of presence, although here the presence specifically refers to refugees. As we know, throughout history refugees have been created through human violence, whether political or cultural, and is a universal state. But your work is not about the causes for the movement of refugees, but about their silent and fearful migration, their attempts to remain alive yet unobserved. Your discovery of their clothes, shoes and bags while you were on a beach in Sicily speaks of the poignancy inherent in simple everyday possessions. Could you describe how this finding affected you, and how it shifted your approach to the landscape of your home?
I sometimes refer to my life as before and after the refugees. Now, I have a heightened awareness of what the Kruger Park would feel like to a refugee passing through on foot, as thousands have done. Or what a dust road in the Karoo would look like if I didn’t have a cosy bungalow to return to (“Tomorrow”). Home and shelter is such a profound need in all of us. To be without it is for many, unimaginable. This makes it easy to distance ourselves from displaced people. These neatly folded clothes didn’t allow me to distance myself. The desperation that causes people to be unable to stay where they belong, was all there in those folded clothes.
You speak of African cloths such as the kind you have painted into the landscape as offering protection, yet also showing the women refugees’ attempt to hold onto their senses of identity through colour and beauty. Three of your works Sicily I, Sicily and Whisper have an awareness of these cloths – fabric by its very nature being as biodegradable as human presence and identity – as having become integrated into the land, almost as fossils. Would you say that the fragility of cloth and the knowledge underpinning fossil formation speaks of an impression that the existence of the human race is temporary on the Earth?
I was thinking on a smaller scale in these works. Yes, as a race we are probably temporary, but the cloth is meant as a reference to the fragility and the tenacity of the existence of a refugee. This year, roughly 120 000 people have been rescued from the Mediterranean by Italian ships. We can talk endlessly about the reasons for the existence of refugees, but it is only when we realise that these are individuals (someone with a size 6 shoe, who likes the colour orange or pink, for example) that we will start to feel the problem. It is truly tragic that in some cases, the fabric (clothes, shoes) was less easily lost than the human lives.
Could you speak a little about other works, such as Marikana, The Shore and again Sicily I, which seem to have a subterranean glow. Could you speak a little about that sense of underground light that you have created?
I made “Marikana” before I went to Sicily, but have included it in the Welcome Stranger show because it is about the same issues of dispossession and betrayal. Most miners are migrants and I am sure they would rather be home, where they couldn’t stay. I was intrigued by media images of the striking miners sitting on the rocky outcrops. The solid, ancient rock contrasted starkly with the transient presence of the miners, yet their steadfastness was echoed in the rock. This particular koppie is close to my home and it burns every year. It always has a primal feeling for me. I like your reference to a “subterranean glow”. As I paint less directly from life my work seems to have less of a single light source and more of a general ‘glow’. I would also like to think there is some echo of patterns and rhythms that occur in all things natural.
Also a painting with that glow, and the only one that contains the human figure is Stay A While. Could you comment on your decision to include the figure in just this one work?
My daughter modelled for this work, but really it is me. When I return from travelling, I pass through this valley and then I know I am close to home. This time, returning from Sicily and with the idea of migrancy in mind, I felt a strong sense of belonging. I think the figure was necessary to convey the weight of this awareness. She is stitched in to the landscape with brushmarks and she is definitely not going anywhere. It is a bit as if she is lying in state, in her final resting place. So be it.
And a discernible human presence is evident in the two monotypes In the Shadows I and In the Shadows III through your inclusion of shadows of figures?
Yes, but these figures are far more fleeting than the figure in “Stay a While”. I used shadow to suggest impermanence and anonymity. Ironically, refugees depend on anonymity while they are on the move. When they reach the place where they are seeking asylum/refuge, they depend on being recognized by the authorities.
Except for the above two prints, in some of the works the cloths appear to be floating, in some they appear integrated into the landscape, yet throughout a strange tension has developed as in each of these states there is a hint of the other?
What you have described is synonymous with migrancy and with being a refugee. I can only imagine how those few possessions taken from home become like a life raft. Painting “Welcome Stranger” was an absorbing process. It took a long time and at times I thought I was being silly, devoting so much energy to these little pieces of floating cloth. By the end of the process, I felt a tiny glimmer of satisfaction because I had walked that fine line between permanent and fleeting, naïve and reality…
Would you mind sharing your creative process when you arrive at a place you wish to paint – do you sketch/paint/photograph the land while there as well as work afterwards in your studio?
Yes, all of the above. Most of my work involves a lot of studio time. If I work outdoors, it is usually in pen and ink, charcoal or pencil. I take photographs and sometimes rely on these for information (the growth pattern of a plant, the shape of a skyline) but find that now I work more from memory. The painting “Sicily” is painted entirely from memory and I think one can feel that. These days I find that seeing the landscape is only a tiny part of the process. It is as if my vocabulary has increased and I draw on things in me that I may not even know are there. The landscape is often the starting point, but as my body of work grows, I feel like a GPS with lots of blue-highlighted, previously travelled roads criss-crossing the map. They sometimes obscure the intended path but they can make a richer journey.
Finally on another note, you have kindly agreed to allow outoftheCUBE to feature your exhibition online while it is showing at Glynis Blomkamp’s Gallery 2 in Johannesburg with her agreement. At outoftheCUBE, we believe that online exhibitions can’t replace a physical exhibition, but that each could add to and complement the other. Could you share a few of your thoughts about online exhibiting, the pros and cons?
One of the delights of 2014 is our access to information. I revel in it. There is no way to replace standing in front of the original work (my work is sometimes big, so the reduction in scale is significant), but it is a privilege to be able to reach a larger audience via other media. It should indeed work both ways, so that more people are encouraged to go into galleries after seeing work on their screens. In a way, artists are going to need to work even harder to be heard. People in general are becoming spoilt with so many instant images accessible at a push of a button and we may forget what it takes to create a strong image. Seeing the work in any form is better than not seeing it at all (well, hopefully) and will extend the conversation, as we are doing in this interview!
Thank you, Karin!
Brown is Good
I had just returned from the hardware store (needed some MDF board cut to size - works for tiny paintings, as long as it is well primed with gesso). Remember, home is in a medium-sized town where the emphasis is on agricultural and service industries, so it is not a given that a lefty-leaning female artist will always be completely understood. Over the years, visits to panel beaters, tyre shops, car garages, hardware stores have been fraught with ‘isms… paternalism, sexism, racism to name a few. These days things are a bit better, perhaps because savvy businesses have cottoned on to the spending power of women, but I still have a residual nagging feeling.
Today was refreshing. As I scanned the counters for a friendly-looking assistant, a blushing young man in khaki and boots caught my eye. I explained what I wanted, trying not to be too overbearing and leaving the planning of the cutting list to him and the software. He apologised sweetly for the estimated three day wait for the cutting - three days! Still, I maintained my composure, trying to pass for an average customer. Eventually I couldn’t help myself and produced a sample that I had brought with me, just to check that we were talking about the same thickness of board. This little board I had lovingly prepared with gesso and then transparent layers of Ultramarine Blue and Dioxazine Violet. He looked a little uncomfortable when he saw it, and apologised again, saying that it was the same thickness but unfortunately they didn’t have it in purple. No problem, I said, brown is good. I left with a happy heart. (and he managed to get the board cut in ten minutes!)
On the way home, I had to pull off the road to pick some of the most beautiful Kiaat seeds imaginable. Several passers-by also stared at the contorted tree, laden with angel-like seeds in glowing Lemon Yellow with a touch of Titanium White and Viridian Green, and asked me what I was looking at.
Today was refreshing. As I scanned the counters for a friendly-looking assistant, a blushing young man in khaki and boots caught my eye. I explained what I wanted, trying not to be too overbearing and leaving the planning of the cutting list to him and the software. He apologised sweetly for the estimated three day wait for the cutting - three days! Still, I maintained my composure, trying to pass for an average customer. Eventually I couldn’t help myself and produced a sample that I had brought with me, just to check that we were talking about the same thickness of board. This little board I had lovingly prepared with gesso and then transparent layers of Ultramarine Blue and Dioxazine Violet. He looked a little uncomfortable when he saw it, and apologised again, saying that it was the same thickness but unfortunately they didn’t have it in purple. No problem, I said, brown is good. I left with a happy heart. (and he managed to get the board cut in ten minutes!)
On the way home, I had to pull off the road to pick some of the most beautiful Kiaat seeds imaginable. Several passers-by also stared at the contorted tree, laden with angel-like seeds in glowing Lemon Yellow with a touch of Titanium White and Viridian Green, and asked me what I was looking at.
Kalahari
All the cliched descriptions one hears about the Kalahari are true. It is harsh land, where the distribution of the plants and the colour of the soil are the only signs that there may be, or may have been, water there.
It took me months to process what I had seen and felt. My tried and trusted methods of painting didn’t work; it was as if the light came from above and somehow, from the ground. I reassessed every colour and brush mark. The white paper that is the start of the printmaking process suited this bleached and tentative landscape.
Collaborating with Mark also worked; he is so tuned in to the surface of the print, seeing with me, the things that may go unnoticed, picking up on the tentative and helping to find a way to say it with ink. What fun it was to pick up on chance marks and develop them into thorn bushes, or pebbles and to build up layers of thousands of carefully curated dots (really like doing that!) into something that radiates heat and gives a sense of vast space.
It took me months to process what I had seen and felt. My tried and trusted methods of painting didn’t work; it was as if the light came from above and somehow, from the ground. I reassessed every colour and brush mark. The white paper that is the start of the printmaking process suited this bleached and tentative landscape.
Collaborating with Mark also worked; he is so tuned in to the surface of the print, seeing with me, the things that may go unnoticed, picking up on the tentative and helping to find a way to say it with ink. What fun it was to pick up on chance marks and develop them into thorn bushes, or pebbles and to build up layers of thousands of carefully curated dots (really like doing that!) into something that radiates heat and gives a sense of vast space.
Far From Home
Wales is not everyone’s dream destination; it’s a bit too soggy for that. It does have a wonderful coastal path that goes from one end of the country to the other (1400km). This path is treacherous in parts, definitely not adhering to health and safety standards that are so prevalent in this nanny state. We bumped into Bob, who was slip-sliding his way along the path and his only concession to health and safety was his neon green reflector jacket. Bob made us guess his age (he was born when Winston Churchill first became Prime Minister was our clue). We asked where he was headed and he said Mwnft, or something like that. The language is also a bit odd, with a strng lck f vwls (strange lack of vowels).
We stayed in a restored stable. The farm is owned by a young couple who have possibly watched too many episodes of Grand Designs and hoped to restore the farm while commuting from the city and raising several children. The challenges are numerous and fortunately not mine. I could relate to the pioneering spirit of their venture, the underfloor heating and dream bathroom, the windows looking on to the four fields and the wild sea; my kind of place. The plan was to walk on the coastal path to Fishguard, a tiny fishing harbour. It was actually raining when we set off, so I (being African) thought we should retreat to the underfloor heating and half metre thick walls. My sister (being anglicised) felt it was a lovely day. We crossed the four fields of the farm, waded through grass (again, a mixture of Viridian Green and Lemon Yellow) and clambered over lichen encrusted walls. As we got closer to the glassy, Paynes Grey sea, we froze. I knew that sound, a primal explosion of bubbles and wailing that echoed in the caves below…hippos! Peering gingerly over the edge of the cliff we spied the giant Atlantic Seals and their snow-white babies (they looked like squirming maggots from up there).
Bravely, we stuck to the plan, stopping for sustenance at a formerly grand seaside hotel - a blend of the Durban Country Club and something out of Dirty Dancing. We ate cream, with scones and tea, surrounded by content elderly people and a disapproving barman who doubled as the waiter. Next stop was Fishguard, where we hung around the town square hoping to work out which bus to take. Because she spent too long living in London, anglicised sister was nervous to ask the bus drivers. Plucking up the courage we hopped onto a bus. The bus driver was strong looking with lots of piercings and she scowled at us. We explained our plight, gesturing in the general direction of where we had come from. She broke into a broad smile and said “Oh that will be near Buv nd Juff’s (Bev and Jeff) place”. I couldn’t have felt further from home and more at home all at once.
We stayed in a restored stable. The farm is owned by a young couple who have possibly watched too many episodes of Grand Designs and hoped to restore the farm while commuting from the city and raising several children. The challenges are numerous and fortunately not mine. I could relate to the pioneering spirit of their venture, the underfloor heating and dream bathroom, the windows looking on to the four fields and the wild sea; my kind of place. The plan was to walk on the coastal path to Fishguard, a tiny fishing harbour. It was actually raining when we set off, so I (being African) thought we should retreat to the underfloor heating and half metre thick walls. My sister (being anglicised) felt it was a lovely day. We crossed the four fields of the farm, waded through grass (again, a mixture of Viridian Green and Lemon Yellow) and clambered over lichen encrusted walls. As we got closer to the glassy, Paynes Grey sea, we froze. I knew that sound, a primal explosion of bubbles and wailing that echoed in the caves below…hippos! Peering gingerly over the edge of the cliff we spied the giant Atlantic Seals and their snow-white babies (they looked like squirming maggots from up there).
Bravely, we stuck to the plan, stopping for sustenance at a formerly grand seaside hotel - a blend of the Durban Country Club and something out of Dirty Dancing. We ate cream, with scones and tea, surrounded by content elderly people and a disapproving barman who doubled as the waiter. Next stop was Fishguard, where we hung around the town square hoping to work out which bus to take. Because she spent too long living in London, anglicised sister was nervous to ask the bus drivers. Plucking up the courage we hopped onto a bus. The bus driver was strong looking with lots of piercings and she scowled at us. We explained our plight, gesturing in the general direction of where we had come from. She broke into a broad smile and said “Oh that will be near Buv nd Juff’s (Bev and Jeff) place”. I couldn’t have felt further from home and more at home all at once.
Welcome Stranger
The small boat crossed the treacherous channel and left us on the tiny island off Sicily. It is an exquisite place; turquoise water that hurts the eyes and a shimmering fortress. I thought we were alone on the island. We walked on the baked path and the physical connection with Africa was evident. We found neatly arranged clothes, drying in the sun and left by refugees who had crossed from Africa to Europe. As we walked, I could smell fear. I knew instantly that people were hiding in the low vegetation. I raised my hand slightly in greeting and kept walking.
Back home, where my sense of belonging is strongest, I began to see landscapes as a refugee would experience them. The Kruger Park was no longer a pristine wilderness, but a place where animals hunt when you walk under the cover of night. I realised why some mountain ranges are called barriers. I painted myself in the landscape that welcomes me, lying there like a stone that cannot be moved, stitched into my surroundings with brush marks.
Migration is pervasive. Out of necessity, it often happens quietly. In these works, the refugees leave silent traces of their journey through water, sand and mountains. I asked myself what I would take if I had to leave, and I saw that African women take fabric. I scattered my collection of African fabrics on the floor and painted them as if lost at sea. Every cloth is regional and has meaning. With it around her, a woman can seem regal and even happy. She might even feel these things. These flashes of colour push back despair; they conceal and express at the same time.
*‘Welcome Stranger’ is the translation of a message written on a Kanga cloth.
Back home, where my sense of belonging is strongest, I began to see landscapes as a refugee would experience them. The Kruger Park was no longer a pristine wilderness, but a place where animals hunt when you walk under the cover of night. I realised why some mountain ranges are called barriers. I painted myself in the landscape that welcomes me, lying there like a stone that cannot be moved, stitched into my surroundings with brush marks.
Migration is pervasive. Out of necessity, it often happens quietly. In these works, the refugees leave silent traces of their journey through water, sand and mountains. I asked myself what I would take if I had to leave, and I saw that African women take fabric. I scattered my collection of African fabrics on the floor and painted them as if lost at sea. Every cloth is regional and has meaning. With it around her, a woman can seem regal and even happy. She might even feel these things. These flashes of colour push back despair; they conceal and express at the same time.
*‘Welcome Stranger’ is the translation of a message written on a Kanga cloth.
Yes, my mom is an artist
Notes from my delightfully sarcastic offspring, on growing up with an artist mother…
• Complementary colours were old hat before I was five
• One eye closed and fingers measuring the view means it’s going to be a long trip
• Seeing distant smoke and driving towards it to study the veld fire
• Artwork having seating precedence in the car
• Not knowing what to say when asked “are you an artist like your mother?”
• My first playdate and I come home to report that it was fun, but I don’t know where their studio is
• Fighting my way down the passage through a forest of paintings
• What do you mean I can’t doodle in class?
• Aprons behind the kitchen door, marked by more paint than food
• Strange music
• "Can I eat this, or is Mom painting it?"
• “All fruit looks like vaginas”
• "Please fetch the cerulean blue plate"
• Knowing no one in your family will ever play rugby
• Painting the backdrop for the school play, everybody wins
• Squinting at me
• Gallery finger food, Saturday lunch
• No Prestik, but kneadable erasers work
• Living in a house that’s purple, but only we can tell that it’s not brown
• Never any HB pencils, lots of 8B and 2H
• Graceful, last-minute and relentlessly aesthetic approach to school science projects
• Home time and she is photographing the lichens on the trees in the school parking
• Complementary colours were old hat before I was five
• One eye closed and fingers measuring the view means it’s going to be a long trip
• Seeing distant smoke and driving towards it to study the veld fire
• Artwork having seating precedence in the car
• Not knowing what to say when asked “are you an artist like your mother?”
• My first playdate and I come home to report that it was fun, but I don’t know where their studio is
• Fighting my way down the passage through a forest of paintings
• What do you mean I can’t doodle in class?
• Aprons behind the kitchen door, marked by more paint than food
• Strange music
• "Can I eat this, or is Mom painting it?"
• “All fruit looks like vaginas”
• "Please fetch the cerulean blue plate"
• Knowing no one in your family will ever play rugby
• Painting the backdrop for the school play, everybody wins
• Squinting at me
• Gallery finger food, Saturday lunch
• No Prestik, but kneadable erasers work
• Living in a house that’s purple, but only we can tell that it’s not brown
• Never any HB pencils, lots of 8B and 2H
• Graceful, last-minute and relentlessly aesthetic approach to school science projects
• Home time and she is photographing the lichens on the trees in the school parking
Lowveld/Slowveld
Just when I think I have things under control, a Mozambique Spitting Cobra finds its way between the stacked canvasses in the studio and emits a low growl. So, I explain to the courier that they will have to come back later to fetch the paintings that are off to a white cube gallery in Johannesburg, because first we have to catch the snake. They understand the problem.
Or a nearby friend casually mentions that last night he heard lions roaring (when the rivers are low, animals cross from the Kruger National Park and make their way through the wild and wonderful bush that tumbles around the granite koppies). So, the next night I stay up late hoping to hear the lions and, in the morning, have difficulty concentrating on my work.
Despite my best efforts, enormous porcupines burrow under the fence at night and decimate my carefully cultivated, organic lettuce. They wake us with their snorting and the clatter of their quills. The remains of the veg garden are then finished off by the hefty baboons that wait for the moment when there is nobody home. These are Lowveld problems.
It's more than the wildlife though. Living a less sanitised existence keeps people real. There is a general air of getting on with things, slowly and with a good dollop of the human touch. It is possible to reach a healthy level of intimacy with people very quickly, with the teller at the supermarket or the headmaster of the school. We don't generally let stuff get in the way and eye contact is as rife as the mosquitoes.
The air is different too, laden and thicker. Most of the time it is warm and if the temperature drops below 20 degrees Celsius, we look at each other in surprise and wind our scarves tighter.
Or a nearby friend casually mentions that last night he heard lions roaring (when the rivers are low, animals cross from the Kruger National Park and make their way through the wild and wonderful bush that tumbles around the granite koppies). So, the next night I stay up late hoping to hear the lions and, in the morning, have difficulty concentrating on my work.
Despite my best efforts, enormous porcupines burrow under the fence at night and decimate my carefully cultivated, organic lettuce. They wake us with their snorting and the clatter of their quills. The remains of the veg garden are then finished off by the hefty baboons that wait for the moment when there is nobody home. These are Lowveld problems.
It's more than the wildlife though. Living a less sanitised existence keeps people real. There is a general air of getting on with things, slowly and with a good dollop of the human touch. It is possible to reach a healthy level of intimacy with people very quickly, with the teller at the supermarket or the headmaster of the school. We don't generally let stuff get in the way and eye contact is as rife as the mosquitoes.
The air is different too, laden and thicker. Most of the time it is warm and if the temperature drops below 20 degrees Celsius, we look at each other in surprise and wind our scarves tighter.
Lost at Sea
We travelled to Sardinia, a wonderfully rugged island off the west coast of Italy. I was entranced by this wild and proud place and plan to return for a self-styled residency. In the meantime, I consoled myself by 'stealing' stones. While we were exploring the hidden recesses of this fiercely traditional island, I kept an evolving collection, editing as we travelled. The island is unforgiving terrain and seems to spit out an endless variety of rock. When we left, I had settled on a small selection which we packed in a suitcase that was supposed to go in the hold but ended up as hand luggage. Long story.
Customs officials in Sardinia are special. They rock those epaulettes, mirrored glasses and white gloves like nowhere else. They also have some of the most sophisticated scanning that I have seen. Ping! Madame...you may not rob the island of its natural resources (fair enough). This can be a 3000 euro fine! So it was goodbye to my little collection of memories and inspiration. I think my genuine dismay at losing my beautiful stones must have softened his heart and he didn't fine me.
When we were home and unpacking the suitcases, to my joy I found these three undiscovered stones wrapped in a sock! Perhaps I will return them to their beach when I go back...
Customs officials in Sardinia are special. They rock those epaulettes, mirrored glasses and white gloves like nowhere else. They also have some of the most sophisticated scanning that I have seen. Ping! Madame...you may not rob the island of its natural resources (fair enough). This can be a 3000 euro fine! So it was goodbye to my little collection of memories and inspiration. I think my genuine dismay at losing my beautiful stones must have softened his heart and he didn't fine me.
When we were home and unpacking the suitcases, to my joy I found these three undiscovered stones wrapped in a sock! Perhaps I will return them to their beach when I go back...
Night Sightings
We cannot see what isn’t illuminated, yet we all read different things into darkness and what we cannot see. It becomes the space where the unknown and unproven reside. Our response to what we can’t or don’t see can be most revealing, a vehicle for our dreams and our anxieties.
Living in Mpumalanga offers plenty of chances to travel on dirt roads at night. I feel soothed in remote places, where the night is darker. When I first experienced night game drives I found myself overlooking the lions and studying the way the spotlight burnt out the lit areas and increased the sense of mystery in the dark. Peering into the darkness, shining a spotlight on things connects with something primal in us.
The medium, starting with a dark plate and using a subtraction process, an accumulation of thousands of deliberate marks to coax the light coming from the lightbox, was eerily akin to the idea behind these images. The single light source in the images coming from behind the viewer, challenged my knowledge of how to represent landscape, encouraging me to find new ways of seeing and drawing these lithographs.
Living in Mpumalanga offers plenty of chances to travel on dirt roads at night. I feel soothed in remote places, where the night is darker. When I first experienced night game drives I found myself overlooking the lions and studying the way the spotlight burnt out the lit areas and increased the sense of mystery in the dark. Peering into the darkness, shining a spotlight on things connects with something primal in us.
The medium, starting with a dark plate and using a subtraction process, an accumulation of thousands of deliberate marks to coax the light coming from the lightbox, was eerily akin to the idea behind these images. The single light source in the images coming from behind the viewer, challenged my knowledge of how to represent landscape, encouraging me to find new ways of seeing and drawing these lithographs.
Scatterlings
The seed of the Scatterlings paintings grew from a conversation with a Zimbabwean man, Leslie. He spoke in vivid detail about his experiences as a migrant worker, and his relationship with home. He has been home annually for ten years, yet the phrase he kept using was “I have a home”.
Leslie’s references to home were concrete and practical. He spoke of drought and exchange rates, school shoes and roads. In 2010, when life on a subsistence farm became unsustainable, he went into the forest and harvested Mukwa trees (known in South Africa as Kiaat) and made bowls from the wood. He travelled to Cape Town t0 sell them, but his passport and the bowls were stolen. To make the paintings, I needed a vehicle for this idea, something that took the concept beyond border posts and identity documents. The flying seeds are about transcending borders, whatever they may be.
Pterocarpus Angolensis, the distinctive tree that produces these entrancing “wing fruit” (from the Latin) is native to Southern Africa. It is under threat because the prized hardwood is durable, easy to polish and resistant to termites. Interestingly, it is used to make the Mbira because it produces a rich, resonant sound.
Scatterlings I has a warm sky, dry seeds and a sliver of distant forest. In Scatterlings II, the seeds are green and there is the promise of rain, a different season and a different feeling but with the same sense of these beings floating in vast space. They move with the wind and are weightless, yet solid. Deliberately, the paintings do not have a single focus because I want the viewer to consider each seed individually, even though they are nearly identical.
Leslie’s references to home were concrete and practical. He spoke of drought and exchange rates, school shoes and roads. In 2010, when life on a subsistence farm became unsustainable, he went into the forest and harvested Mukwa trees (known in South Africa as Kiaat) and made bowls from the wood. He travelled to Cape Town t0 sell them, but his passport and the bowls were stolen. To make the paintings, I needed a vehicle for this idea, something that took the concept beyond border posts and identity documents. The flying seeds are about transcending borders, whatever they may be.
Pterocarpus Angolensis, the distinctive tree that produces these entrancing “wing fruit” (from the Latin) is native to Southern Africa. It is under threat because the prized hardwood is durable, easy to polish and resistant to termites. Interestingly, it is used to make the Mbira because it produces a rich, resonant sound.
Scatterlings I has a warm sky, dry seeds and a sliver of distant forest. In Scatterlings II, the seeds are green and there is the promise of rain, a different season and a different feeling but with the same sense of these beings floating in vast space. They move with the wind and are weightless, yet solid. Deliberately, the paintings do not have a single focus because I want the viewer to consider each seed individually, even though they are nearly identical.
Under the Radar
I began painting lichens in 2017 and it has developed into an ongoing project. Wherever I go, I fall a little in love with lichens that I meet. Interestingly, they are usually a combination of fungi and bacteria, producing their own nutrients through photosynthesis. They don’t have roots and can grow in the most extreme of environments, on surfaces, ranging from granite rock to bark, from which they hang. They are simultaneously adaptable and particular. They thrive as pioneers in rapidly changing environments and are also some of the oldest creatures on earth. They are effective indicators of environmental health, particularly of air pollution.
The paintings are not intended as botanical studies, but as translations into paint, with allowances for favouritism and obsession. There is something primal about this life form. A friend said they made her think of the beginnings of life; another said that perhaps it is the fractal patterns that we find absorbing. Whatever it is, my viewers also develop personal attachments to these strange organisms, and the fact that they are obscure combinations of fungus and bacteria fades away. Perhaps it is the naming process that helps. This is the fun part. Somehow, each one has the right title and it is a matter of exploring my own mind until I find the one that fits. The successful titles are usually tongue-in-cheek with a hint of something more.
The paintings are not intended as botanical studies, but as translations into paint, with allowances for favouritism and obsession. There is something primal about this life form. A friend said they made her think of the beginnings of life; another said that perhaps it is the fractal patterns that we find absorbing. Whatever it is, my viewers also develop personal attachments to these strange organisms, and the fact that they are obscure combinations of fungus and bacteria fades away. Perhaps it is the naming process that helps. This is the fun part. Somehow, each one has the right title and it is a matter of exploring my own mind until I find the one that fits. The successful titles are usually tongue-in-cheek with a hint of something more.
Home
My studio is five minutes from the Spar, amongst the huge granite domes from which Klipspringer survey the surrounding bush. Often, we hack back the garden to get to the front door because things grow fast and furiously. We look down a narrow valley towards the east and so we watch the sun come up and the moon rise. Two hundred kilometres to the east is the harbour city of Maputo, capital of Mozambique. Three hundred kilometres west is the urgency of Johannesburg. A short trip up the escarpment to towns with sweet names like Graskop (grass head) and Kiepersol (cabbage sun?) lifts one out of the heat and humidity into the thinner air of the Highveld. These emerald grasslands and montane forests are crammed with an array of fascinating plants.
Of course, there is the Kruger National Park, where one can drive for days through pristine wilderness. Days! On tarred roads, at 50km/h. It does something to one’s sense of significance.
South and over the Makonjwa mountains (the peak one must not point at because it will bring bad luck) into Swaziland. This is a deeply traditional place and one of the last remaining absolute monarchies. It is also where the annual Umhlanga ceremony happens. Young girls symbolically bring cut reeds to the Queen Mother to repair the windbreak around her residence. Up to 40,000 girls dancing in bright clothing; beadwork and texture, rhythm and colour. Occasionally the King chooses another wife from them. Not something I would want for my own daughter, but here at home we all live close to many things that are simultaneously uncomfortable and wondrous.
Of course, there is the Kruger National Park, where one can drive for days through pristine wilderness. Days! On tarred roads, at 50km/h. It does something to one’s sense of significance.
South and over the Makonjwa mountains (the peak one must not point at because it will bring bad luck) into Swaziland. This is a deeply traditional place and one of the last remaining absolute monarchies. It is also where the annual Umhlanga ceremony happens. Young girls symbolically bring cut reeds to the Queen Mother to repair the windbreak around her residence. Up to 40,000 girls dancing in bright clothing; beadwork and texture, rhythm and colour. Occasionally the King chooses another wife from them. Not something I would want for my own daughter, but here at home we all live close to many things that are simultaneously uncomfortable and wondrous.
Studio Space
Working as an artist makes for an interesting life. Mostly this is because it is essential to be a little porous, open to triggers and clues that more sensible activities would filter out.
Studio spaces are often intriguing. It is a myth that all artists work in a frenzy of chaotic creativity. I like a tidy space, with lots of room to move around freely. My process is fairly analytical, interspersed with bouts of warm, fuzzy highs and loud music. There are also the anaesthetised lows and that is what the armchair in the sunny corner is for. My studio needs to be the space that accommodates all of this. It must also be a room that responds well to both music and silence.
When I was a teenager, after years of sharing a bedroom, I inherited a large, quiet room of my own. It had cool blue walls, plush blue carpeting and an air conditioner (this was Durban). During the tedious school day, I carried the sanctuary of my blue room around with me. When I got home, I would retreat and draw, with the air conditioner pouring icy, blue air over me. This was the first time that I associated a space with a feeling.
My current studio space is important to my work process. It is the place where I translate the raw material gathered from the outside world. Most artists have such a space and associated rituals - a place where head and heart meet.
Studio spaces are often intriguing. It is a myth that all artists work in a frenzy of chaotic creativity. I like a tidy space, with lots of room to move around freely. My process is fairly analytical, interspersed with bouts of warm, fuzzy highs and loud music. There are also the anaesthetised lows and that is what the armchair in the sunny corner is for. My studio needs to be the space that accommodates all of this. It must also be a room that responds well to both music and silence.
When I was a teenager, after years of sharing a bedroom, I inherited a large, quiet room of my own. It had cool blue walls, plush blue carpeting and an air conditioner (this was Durban). During the tedious school day, I carried the sanctuary of my blue room around with me. When I got home, I would retreat and draw, with the air conditioner pouring icy, blue air over me. This was the first time that I associated a space with a feeling.
My current studio space is important to my work process. It is the place where I translate the raw material gathered from the outside world. Most artists have such a space and associated rituals - a place where head and heart meet.
Sicily
We were on Sicily, an Italian island at the very southern tip of Europe and it was slowly dawning on me that it wasn’t all turquoise water and pungent tomatoes. We rented a house from Rosa, a wonderful woman with a long list of qualifications that included mediation and Fine Art. She has a son who she adopted years ago when he arrived on a boat. He was a teenage refugee from the Congo. Rosa with a small budget and a big heart.
It was strange to be in a European place that felt so African. The hot wind and the dust come across the sea from Africa. So do people, fleeing lives that are unsustainable, taking unimaginable chances to make the journey in overcrowded vessels. Sicily is littered with evidence of thousands of years of occupations and influences. It has a kind of frontier feeling to it; I suppose if you are booted off the mainland you are bound to pick up this kind of traffic. Fortification dominates the architecture. We drove into the hills around Syracuse, where many of the rock faces have been carved out by people seeking refuge. This has been happening since about 800BC. It is easy to see why the pull of beautiful, strategically situated Sicily was so strong. For most of today’s refuge seekers, however, the push is a stronger factor than the pull.
I returned home, my head spinning with ideas. Unearthing my sense of belonging is a recurring idea in my work. Fleeing one’s home and clinging to the slim hope of being accepted elsewhere is an extreme test of belonging. The Welcome Stranger exhibition came pouring out, but there is still more work to be done.
It was strange to be in a European place that felt so African. The hot wind and the dust come across the sea from Africa. So do people, fleeing lives that are unsustainable, taking unimaginable chances to make the journey in overcrowded vessels. Sicily is littered with evidence of thousands of years of occupations and influences. It has a kind of frontier feeling to it; I suppose if you are booted off the mainland you are bound to pick up this kind of traffic. Fortification dominates the architecture. We drove into the hills around Syracuse, where many of the rock faces have been carved out by people seeking refuge. This has been happening since about 800BC. It is easy to see why the pull of beautiful, strategically situated Sicily was so strong. For most of today’s refuge seekers, however, the push is a stronger factor than the pull.
I returned home, my head spinning with ideas. Unearthing my sense of belonging is a recurring idea in my work. Fleeing one’s home and clinging to the slim hope of being accepted elsewhere is an extreme test of belonging. The Welcome Stranger exhibition came pouring out, but there is still more work to be done.
My Own Backyard
I set myself the task of painting the view from my back veranda, once a month for a year. For thirty years, this lush escarpment forest has been my anchor. I know this place so intimately that I almost feel it instead of seeing it. This is dangerous territory when it comes to observational painting, because what you think you know may overwhelm what you see.
My back garden is a rich environment. Plants and trees jostle for space while our resident troop of Vervet monkeys move through them with ease. At night, the bushbabies venture out of their nest in the tall palm and scamper over the metal roof. They can be very vocal, and their blood-curdling cries alarm our visitors. Porcupines shuffle around in the dark too. We smell them before we see them. Ten years ago, we relinquished our bright blue swimming pool; the pond is now a wonderfully alive oasis, that harbours a myriad of creatures. I wanted a sense of all of this in the paintings.
Although my goal was not photographic realism, I wanted each of the twelve paintings to be true to that exact place and the season. This was an interesting process because the location of my veranda stays constant, and yet each painting evokes a different feeling; intense observation coming full circle in the distillation of the marks and colours into something specific, yet familiar. Playfully, and with great joy, I arrived at one of my core ideas: the more specific a landscape painting, the more universal the interpretation and meaning.
My back garden is a rich environment. Plants and trees jostle for space while our resident troop of Vervet monkeys move through them with ease. At night, the bushbabies venture out of their nest in the tall palm and scamper over the metal roof. They can be very vocal, and their blood-curdling cries alarm our visitors. Porcupines shuffle around in the dark too. We smell them before we see them. Ten years ago, we relinquished our bright blue swimming pool; the pond is now a wonderfully alive oasis, that harbours a myriad of creatures. I wanted a sense of all of this in the paintings.
Although my goal was not photographic realism, I wanted each of the twelve paintings to be true to that exact place and the season. This was an interesting process because the location of my veranda stays constant, and yet each painting evokes a different feeling; intense observation coming full circle in the distillation of the marks and colours into something specific, yet familiar. Playfully, and with great joy, I arrived at one of my core ideas: the more specific a landscape painting, the more universal the interpretation and meaning.
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