David Koloane is an artist who grew up in the township of Alexandra and has worked in the arts in South Africa for more than 25 years.  During this time, Koloane has explored many different techniques to create highly emotive art pieces.  Focusing on painting in acrylic and water colour, and making prints using etching and drypoint processes, Koloane has developed a unique and inspirational body of work.

Drawing reference from his surroundings, Koloane’s work usually alludes to the complex urban landscapes of Johannesburg.  Imbued with both political and social commentary, Koloane’s works express strong emotional linkages to events and spaces in and around the city.

‘Koloane’s interpretation of urban life has struggled and triumphed in finding different visions and modes, techniques, materials to express the huge oppressions, upheavals, and hard-won freedoms that have been epitomised in our cities sprawl.’ (Tadjo 2002:4)

Predominantly focused on architectural and social landscapes, he has also drawn from more abstract references to comment on social conditions.  Koloane’s ‘Snarling Dogs’ (1993-1994) paintings, for example, draw on imagery of the township dog to express the extreme socio-economic conditions, and their psychosocial side effects surrounding him.

‘They are scavengers turning over rubbish bins.  Howling under the moonlight, sending shivers down the spines of the residents.  It is the primal fear of past nightmares, of a time without laws.  Unpredictable.  Terrifying.’ (Tadjo 2002:29)

Koloane’s latest series of drypoint prints, ‘Wings of Freedom’, returns to an emotive expression of social conditions through the symbolism of township animals.  In this series, images of doves are used to explore the development of his personal relationship with ‘freedom’ in the new South Africa. Using his characteristically unrestrained marks, Koloane has developed a drypoint technique that captures the expressionistic essence of his paintings.  Working with a free hand, Koloane focuses on creating energy in his prints rather than restricting himself to life-like renditions of his subjects.

Launch of William Kentridge Nose, 26 January 2010.

Excerpted from The Journey by Rabindranath Tagore

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The morning seas of silence broke into ripples of bird song;

And the flowers were all merry by the roadside;

And the wealth of gold was scattered through the rift of clouds

While we busily went on our way and paid no heed.

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TWILIGHT SHADOWS ACROSS

Excerpted from The Leyou Tombs by Li Shangyin (AD 813-858)

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With twilight shadows across my heart

I have driven up among the Leyou Tombs

To see the sun, for all his glory,

Buried by the coming night.

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Originally translated by Witter Bynner. Retranslated by Wenga Du for Forests of Stone Steles.

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NEW DAY

Excerpted from She Rose To His Requirements by Emily Dickinson

If ought She missed in Her new Day,

Of Amplitude, or Awe –

Or first Prospective –

Of the Gold In using, wear away…

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More from GAIL BEHRMANN on www.davidkrutpublishing.com

Journey

Why Abstract Art? part I

Why Abstract Art? part II

Reading List

Gail Behrmann’s Poetic Inspiration

POETRY

The Journey by Rabindranath Tagore

The Leyou Tombs by Li Shangyin

She Rose To His Requirements by Emily Dickinson

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ARTISTS and WRITERS

Bill Ainslie

Hans Hofman

Cy Twombly

Claude Monet

John Hoyland

Willem de Kooning

Patrick Heron

Nel Erasmus

Mark Rothko

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More from GAIL BEHRMANN on www.davidkrutpublishing.com

Journey

Why Abstract Art? part I

Why Abstract Art? part II

Reading List

Gail Behrmann’s Poetic Inspiration

Part II

“What goes on in abstract art is the proclaiming of aesthetic principles… It is in our own time that we have become aware of pure aesthetic considerations. Art never can be imitation.” – Hans Hoffmann (1880-1966), American Abstract Expressionist painter and educator.

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Hans Hofmann, Equinox

There is a notion that abstract painters do not like figurative or representational work, nothing can be further from that, I have a house full of figurative work by other artists.

From my own point of view, abstract painting is not only about feeling, but it becomes a means of self-exploration.

The practice of abstract painting takes me further than expressing a feeling. It allows a situation where I must marry emotion and intellect. It means I must extend myself beyond the function of seeing. It creates a place where I must grapple not only with myself, but also with problems of making good art.

The more minimal my work becomes, masters like Vermeer, Rembrandt, Velasquez – (the list goes on) become more and more important. One only needs to look at Van Gogh, Cezanne and Gauguin to understand light, colour and form.

Hans Hoffmann introduced in his teachings, a term referred to as push-pull. Essential in the discipline of drawing objects.

Before the advent of the camera, the painter had in fact to record events, a visual journalist who depicted history. But who cannot be in awe of Goya’s Disasters of War. In South Africa we and the world are blessed with Kentridge. This is not to say abstract painters do not reflect history, Motherwell and the series Ellegy To the Spanish Republic and Picasso’s Guernica are immediate examples.

Just as technology pushes us to explore the outer perimeters of space, science and medicine. I, as a painter, want to explore my own self and the medium in which I am working. It is a place to meet my demons and grapple with them. A place to escape when the pressure gets too hot. A place to relate to the very landscape around me.

- Gail Behrmann, 2009

Journey, by Gail Behrmann, runs at David Krut Projects from 28 November – 25 January 2010.

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More from GAIL BEHRMANN on www.davidkrutpublishing.com

Journey

Why Abstract Art? part I

Reading List

Gail Behrmann’s Poetic Inspiration

Virginia MacKenny’s show Crossing opened on 29 October at David Krut Projects, Johannesburg. The exhbition was opened by Wits Professor and fellow artist, Jeremy Wafer and on the 31st,  MacKenny hosted a walk-about at which she spoke about her motivations, techniques and subject matter.

Crossing will run until 25 November 2009. For further information on the works please contact Taryn or Londiwe on 011 447 0627, taryn@davidkrut.com, londiwe@davidkrut.com

The theme for this years Biennale is Borders and Whitton’s work Patmos and the War at Sea series was chosen to feature amoung four other South African artists. Whitton relates his work to the Borders theme by stating that ”Patmos considers the space between parallel landscapes. Landscapes evoke the notion of borders and the border between worlds, where at the point of impact the front line blurs.” In Patmos, Whitton also makes use of words; words used to evoke pictures. As the words in the series are difficult, if not impossible, to decipher (as they are laser-cut Braille text), so are the World War Two images that Whitton uses. This ‘blurring’ in both image and text relates the work to two worlds; the physical and spiritual.

Edtions of the Patmos series are also up on display at David Krut’s new space at Arts on Main. For those of you that have not heard, AOM is a hub for artists and creatives. It is located in teh Joburg CBD and the building breathes with a history of the city. Whitton’s work sits beautifully in a venue that speaks of new and old worlds colliding.

For more info on the Biennalle log onto the Creative Africa Network:

• http://www.creativeafricanetwork.com/

For info on AOM log onto:

• http://www.artsonmain.co.za/

For more on Patmos and the War at Sea try these posts from DK Publishing:

• Alastair Whitton’s Encrypted Island
• Alastair Whitton interviewed by Jacqueline Nurse
• Patmos and the War at Sea, an Engaging Exhibition
• Patmos and the War at Sea
• Alastair Whitton Screenprint Project at Halftone Studio with Lingo Rodrigues

Alastair Whitton’s Patmos and the War at Sea exhibition ended its run last month at David Krut Projects, Jan Smuts and has since moved onto to two new locales, Art on Main and the Bamako Biennale. It is an exhibition that places a lot of emphasis on the viewer’s willingness to engage with the work and subject matter. If one takes time with Whitton’s digital laser cut prints, meaning reveals itself in surprising ways. An example of this are the small letters interspersed among the laser cut brail text.

There is also a hidden narrative within his works, which were exhibited along all the DK Project’s walls, filling the gallery with memories and visions of the past. Although the artist offers up so much for the viewer to engage with, the meaning of the images still remains elusive. Whitton has aimed to express the inability of historicisation through visuals or writing to capture the past. Ways of Seeing, the title of the famous John Berger text, is what this exhibition is about.

Whitton does not present history, in this case of World War Two, as something finite, rather the archival war imagery transform into new and surreal objects through their digital replication - Parachutes look like jelly fish, an aerial photograph of trains becomes a murky river. One could see a genuine desire from those at the exhibition to understand or at least attempt to understand the meaning behind each work. Considering it was the Spring Art Tour that night and with all the hullabaloo  and the Grolsch flowing strong, Whitton works provided a meditative and intellectual space, if but for a moment.

The following Saturday was Whitton’s walk-about with some introductory words from David Krut. Krut spoke of Whitton’s interesting life thus far; his spell in Holland at the studio of Marlene Dumas to his time living in the Karoo and finally his current position managing David Krut Cape Town. After a brief thanks to David, Whitton spoke about the work that had taken him a year to complete. He explained about the highly technical of the Braille lettering and exacting digital replication. Whitton alluded to the many messages and theme’s in the work and chose a few works in particular to ’decode’ so the audience could have an insight into the inner workings of the artist. Finally, Whitton answered a few questions from the audience and was back to Cape Town.

text by Jacqueline Nurse, taken from iArt Exhibitions

Colbert Mashile has been heralded as a contemporary African surrealist of sorts. His imagery has developed over the years into a sophisticated language of symbols and characters that are, although often almost recognisable, drawn completely from journeys into deep imagination. Mashile declines to offer any direct interpretation of his own work, and so viewers are left to cast around for visual affinities in order to decipher his artistic code.

When the stream of attention from writers and critics began around 2000, Mashile was almost completely pre-occupied with his own responses to the experience of the male circumcision ritual undergone by boys from the Mapulana clan of the Northern Sotho tribe before they reach their teens. Mashile attributes much of the imagery in his early work to his attempt to confront the horror and trauma of this event. The time Mashile spent living in Johannesburg had similar dark effects on his work. However, once re-located to Bushbuckridge, a rural setting in which he was able to experience his home landscape in a more direct way and live with a greater sense of peace, his work began to take on different and lighter forms.

Looking at work selected from over the years exposes interesting shifts in the artist’s modus operandi: from the ‘psychological images of phallic towers, cowrie shells, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic forms, huddled crowds, whispers and an ominous secrecy’ cited by Kate McCrickard in Mashile’s early work, to a shift toward figuration and subtle development in colour palette in more recent years.

Colbert Mashile on davidkrutpublishing.com

Colbert  Mashile artwork

Colbert Mashile