Bronwen Findlay at David Krut
by Robyn Sassen
Heads of springboks joust crazily with one another for space. Strelizias poke through the fracas. There's a maple leaf too. One might almost be tempted to look for the cameo profile of a queen. No, this is not some kind of colonial emblem revival, although on paper, one might be tempted to believe it.
These are etchings by Bronwen Findlay. They derive from Lesotho blankets which the artist discovered on sale at the country's borders. As etchings, they challenge the medium with conviction and playfulness. The emblems in Findlay's etchings are several times removed from their colonial origins, but retain overtures which lend the work historical resonance, like Kentridge's colonialist landscapes, only more abstract.
These are not by any manner or means precious, pristinely editioned etchings. They are created with a soft ground on copper plate: a blanket is impressed into the ground to create the texture. The plate then undergoes a two-day long etch in acid. The tone achieved by the generation of experiments with colour, transparency and layering, provides a complex texture upon which the emblems sit, intense in their hues, direct in their connotations.
It's an interesting but logical development for Pietermaritzburg-born, Natal University-educated Findlay, who has not shown in Johannesburg before. After the Brett Kebble Art Awards (BKAA) which earned her a merit award, she spent time at David Krut Print Workshop. While her repertoire up until now has comprised translating fabrics into paint, she has now translated the metaphor into printmaking.
The result is as tactile, evocative and meaningful as her paintings. Her show of prints produced and shown here, entitled 'A blanket story: Breaking new ground' was brief, but warranted interest.
After completing her MA a decade ago, she was consumed by the idea of translating the stories ingrained into fabrics made, used and loved in the domestic context. Her BKAA entry explored a bedspread made by her aunt. The work, in its intense focus on the colours, the history, the stains in the fabric, allow the work to straddle distinctions between abstraction and narrative.
One thing led to another, and moving from her 'bedspread' paintings, she came across the Lesotho blankets. They spoke of more than warmth. Emblazoned upon them were a range of emblems: military, colonial. There were blankets showing the Victorian Cross, others bearing the insignia of the Canadian Maple or the head of a springbok. Curious and enthralled, Findlay sought to find out more about the sources of these symbols which were, it seemed, very popular in the weaving of blankets.
Could it reflect on a popular tourist trend? Were the insignia being used for purely visual reasons? Had their political connotations been evaporated and were they now able to feed into local visual culture? Acknowledging the presence of these signs and their importance forced Findlay to acknowledge flaws in her modernist-accented art education.
The opportunity to work with Jill Ross, Timothy Robert and Faulds Meledu in the David Krut Print Workshop came, for Findlay, in the middle of a different body of work, and ultimately influences a series of possibilities and decisions to be taken with this work.
'A Blanket Story' is an unusual but delightful inroad into a future in Johannesburg for Findlay. Dispensing to an extent with the characteristic filigree of her earlier work, these pieces are bold and dramatic, but not without a sense of irrepressible joy in the medium. They leave us anticipating more.
Closed: March 19
David Krut Arts Resource
140 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood
Tel: (011) 880 4242
Fax: (011) 880 6368
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Hours: Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm, Sat 9am - 4pm
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