Walking the Line at Artspace

Walking the Line is a group show of respected contemporary South African artists focusing on drawing and printmaking at Artspace gallery, on the artstrip in Parkwood.

Opening at Wednesday 6th May 2009 at 18h00, artists on show on exhibition include Ian Marley, Toni Ballenden, Jody Olén , Judy Woodbourne, Jaco van der Heever, Ernest Korkie, Craig Smith, Colijn Strydom and Elizabeth Gunter.

The title, not a brief to the artists, refers to the historically uneasy position that both drawing and printmaking has long occupied within the visual arts. Drawing, traditionally a precursor to an artist's "real work" in painting or sculpture, was only ever afforded the status of an artistic process tool rather than a respected medium for making quality art in its own right.

Printmaking has long been considered the "cheaper" cousin of "real art", with editioned works still often mistaken for being copies of an original rather than orginal works of art themselves by the lay public.

While these attributes of drawing and printmaking do have a position in the history of visual art, over the past few decades we have seen a significant shift in the way that art has been made and what is considered "art". With this has come a long overdue change in the way we view contemporary art, and the status of both drawing and printmaking as artmaking processes in their own rights. In addition, the rise of the digital age has seen printmaking taking on a new dimension.

Says Artspace Curator, Teresa Lizamore, "Works of significant provenance have been executed in these media. Some of the countries foremost artists, such as William Kentridge and Diane Victor are internationally known for their work in printmaking and drawing. However there are still great misconceptions, particularly of printmaking, in the private buyers market. We felt that it was important to showcase artists working in these media."

Hence, the brief to the artists was to create new work that would showcase their expertise as printmaker or drawing artists, rather than to curate a show around a conceptual or content driven concern.

Artist Judy Woodbourne explains how she took up the brief:
"My work belongs to a series entitled "shadow boxes". These small works play with the idea of light revealing the drawing, as the boxes have engraved perspex, inked with white ink which in the correct light throws a shadow drawing onto the underlying drawing. For me, these are a play on printmaking and drawing, where the line engraving is thrown in relief onto the underlying drawing on gesso. The other boxes (black boxes) require the darkness to reveal the subtle layers of engraved perspex inked in white ink. I have tried to combine the modern with the tradition of printmaking in these small constructions."

The exhibition will be opened with a glass of wine by Moleleki Frank Ledimo on Wednesday 6th May 2009 at 6 pm at Artspace, Chester Court, 142 Jan Smuts Ave, Rosebank. Please join us for a glass of wine to celebrate this occasion.

The show runs until the 30th May 2009.

Artspace is open from 10h00-17h30 Tuesday - Friday, 10h00- 15h30 on Saturdays.
www.artspace-jhb.co.za

For more information and images contact

Taryn Cohn
Media Liaison for Artspace Gallery
083 6715139
taryncohn@artsourcesouthafrica.co.za