CTAF 2015

cape listings

Undo 1 (Detail)

John Murray
Undo 1 (Detail), 2014 . Acrylic on canvas 200 x 140 cm.

'Undo All'

John Murray at Whatiftheworld / Gallery

WHATIFTHEWORLD is pleased to present 'Undo All', a new exhibition of painting by John Murray.
John Murray is a South African painter living and working in Cape Town South Africa. Working in oil on canvas he creates abstract compositions rendered in a way that still hints at representational forms beneath the surface. His paintings have evolved into an ongoing series that allude structures that are simultaneously in the process of forming or perhaps disintegrating.

'I used to take my dog for walks to a specific beach in Sea Point. On one of these walks I picked up a ceramic shard from what could have been a pot or a vase. The following day I noticed another piece of ceramic. Over the years it became a habit to look out for these shards, like a treasure hunt, trying to find them in between the masses of broken shells.

After my walks I would lay them out on the kitchen table. I liked the way the different shapes, colours and patterns of these fragments interacted with each other.
These shards have a nostalgic presence. What intrigues me is their ability to resonate long after the original objects have been shattered. They trigger the imagination to think of their history, function, previous owners and ultimately the transience of things.

This body of abstract paintings continues an ongoing interest in fragments as a representation of undoing or loss.' - John Murray

04 February - 21 March


also showing

The Fallen and the Drowned
Pierre Fouche

The Fallen and the Drowned, 2014; Invitation image

'The Fallen and the Drowned'

Pierre Fouche

WHATIFTHEWORLD is pleased to present 'The Fallen and the Drowned' a new solo exhibition by Pierre Fouché.

'The Fallen and the Drowned' is an exhibition of intimately scaled laces, embroideries, drawings and video in which Fouché revels in the traditional materials and formats of the techniques he employs as well as their optical and narrative potential.

The works, mostly figures in landscapes, scrolls, are consciously crafty and immersed in the world of male representation and desire. Fragile silk laces express the beauty of relationships and the arbitrary mass of representation that surround-, and come to define them, while drawn and pulled thread embroideries expand the male nude’s incarnation as digital object with the anguished and fearless desire of exhibitionism.

The figure is absent but implied by the locations represented in a series of reverse graphite drawings on black paper and a pinhole photography slideshow video: Solitude Park on the Rhine’s banks in Basel, and the hike route towards Sandy Bay outside Cape Town.

The body of work culminates in rope, braid and twine abstracts that indicate a shift from the others’ figuration and textuality to the realms of intuition and form.





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