'Close, Close'

'Close, Close' is a continuation of a narrative that began with 'The Fall', an earlier group of work exploring the trajectory of a couple’s relationship using biblical imagery. 'Close, Close' continues the couple’s story by delving into the complexities of family life. Where Schreuders’ work previously consisted mostly of single figures, these sculptures predominantly include two or more figures carved from a single block of wood. In Eclipse a mother holds up her baby so that he can see and be seen, obscuring herself from the viewer. In One a father considers with both love and detachment an infant grasping his legs. The vein connecting these works is the idea of the individual being threatened by the very thing he or she desires. For Schreuders, the craving for children and motherhood holds many of these contradictions.  Schreuders calls upon family photographs and literature as source material, exploring her personal experience as a white descendent of colonial settlers in apartheid-era South Africa. While many of the works in 'Close, Close' plumb the depths of individual emotion, Schreuders also approaches the realities of South African racial relationships and the way they permeate family life, as in Abba, where a black woman carries a white baby on her back.

17 March - 16 April