Dee Donaldson, Grace Kotze, anet norval and Janet Solomon at artSPACE Durban
by Carol Brown
This exhibition, curated by Grace Kotze around the idea of 'Formation', attempts to give the spectator insights into the psyche of painters Janet Solomon, anet norval and Dee Donaldson and Kotze herself, and their thought processes in producing their art.
Kotze is an established and well-respected painter who has mastered her technique. This is evidenced by a body of work exploring the theme in an abstract manner, with its interrogation of a journey and the way in which things pass and are reflected in her mind like images which flash across a windscreen. She uses light to hide and reveal, grappling with the idea of the transience of travel and what she describes as 'Isolation [which] is often only present when one is devoid of the emotional noise of others'.
Kotze therefore takes the dual role of curator and participant - one that does not always allow for an objective view. This does shift the idea of a curator standing back and creating something new with a selection of artworks. Whilst acknowledging that nearly everyone in the South African art world plays multiple roles, mostly out of necessity, I found that Kotze's work was uncomfortable in this context and became somewhat lost - it could be because of this process. Sometimes the choice made by the artist herself (presumably this was the case) does not allow for sufficient distance to bring her strongest work forth, or to see where it fits in with the others'. Fresh, and possibly separate, views on selection and display are part of the curatorial process.
Despite the main aim of the show, another theme was apparent, and this was in the concentration of painting. So much has been written and said about painting that one feels it superfluous to even enter into the discussion. Painting has been around since the first images on cave walls and to even consider its death is absurd. New technologies will always bring something to artistic practice but this does not mean the abandonment of that age old impulse to physically make one's mark, a process which involves an embodiment and physicality which cannot be substituted. And these artists are all exceptionally fine painters.
Solomon, whose technique is at times breathtaking, explores several ideas in her work and generously shares her thought processes with the viewer in a question-and-answer session which is so well presented it becomes an artwork itself. She is not one to eschew tradition, and the insight into the unravelling of the iconography of images from art history is fascinating, affording us a deeper understanding of her work whilst locating it in an established lineage. She brings a lush, sensual quality to her canvases, which seduce and at the same time provide a glimpse of a darker environment. In this realm the human form attains a spiritual quality, marking her as part of a larger cosmos. The pregnant figure in Star of the Sea swims through a mysterious ocean and appears to contain identification with the foetus floating inside the body - exterior and interior merge into one universe. This is also evident in Susannah where the figure crouches in a forest vulnerable in her nudity whilst surrounded by a mystical glow. Her landscapes are surreal and nocturnal with a quality of mystery and other-worldliness, imparting to her work spirituality, fantasy and sense of the unknown.
Donaldson also reveals, through light and dark, the deeper sensations of life, death and loneliness. Her work expresses an intensely personal journey of deep loss. Last Hourdescribes the emptiness and chill of extreme sorrow where a cloudy sky symbolizes the feeling of despair whilst the pylons and bundled wire emphasize desolation and a human presence and its concomitant absence. The bleak landscape is used as a metaphor for the encroaching and inevitable darkness which meets us all at some stage in our journey through life. Her correspondence with a friend, which she shows alongside, is an honest revelation of her emotions during her time of loss, and her four diptychs make public a private experience.
norval also places personal experiences in a public arena. Her artist's statement explains that: 'My work celebrates an emotional coming of age story of how Anet Norval has become anet norval. A journey through memories, thoughts, fantasies and experiences of a tomboy forever wanting to be a "daddy's little princess": but becoming everything of the opposite'. Her work consists of notes, sketchbook pages, images of fairy princesses and cowboys, guns and heroes, James Bond and comic book characters children build their dreams from. The images interrogate the complexities of what identity is and how it is formed. They become moments which do not always coalesce in the big picture. Her process uses the fragmentary to construct a sense of self, and her play with Afrikaans words reads like a poetic diary. Her journey has been one of reaction against expectations and stereotypes, and her installation suggests that the process is a continuing one, where the lines of pegged notes are but a chapter in an evolving process. Ideas tumble one upon another in a layered and energetic fashion, and their continuity is assured.
The exhibition as a whole is intriguing, bringing a particularly female perspective to the experiences of birth, creation, femininity and death. This open-ended exploration has been a brave one where the four artists have exhibited an openness and a generosity in bringing their deeply personal experiences into a public arena.
Opens: August 4
Closes: August 23
artSPACE Durban
3 Millar Road (off Umgeni Rd next to Waste Centre), Stamford Hill
Tel: (031) 312 0793
Email: artspace_durban@yahoo.com
www.artspacedurban.co.za
Hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 4pm, Sat 10am - 1pm
