Exhibition 3: Nomadixx

Artist: Sinta Spector
Mentored by: Usha Seejarim

Opening: 24 October 2009 - 18h00
Walkabout: 31 October 2009 / November 2009 - 11h00
Exhibition closes 7 November


Artist Profile:
Before working as an artist in Johannesburg, Sinta worked and studied in America and lived in Japan, Swaziland and Indonesia.

She graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Fine Art from the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C. Spector is currently completing an MFA at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Previous exhibitions have included installations at the Goethe Institute in Johannesburg, in galleries in Rosebank, Johannesburg, on the University of the Witwatersrand campus, as well as in Washington D.C. USA.

Artist Statement:
I create my work out of recycled, reinvented textiles, feathers, buttons, and found objects.
The work deals with issues of job creation.

It attempts to consider the intersection between the creation of art and work and reflects my environmental concerns.

Ultimately, I aim for work that is replicable by others. The mannequins I use to support the textile work have recycling potential and are moulded from paper mache.

A focus of my current work is knitted, knotted textiles. Knitting is an inclusive activity - a technique often passed from skilled to unskilled people. Knitting is also used in occupational therapy for rehabilitation purposes.

While living in Japan, I served an internship with Jurgen Lehl, a German clothing designer working in Tokyo. I catalogued thousands of different textile swatches by colour and texture. This work although ostensibly a simple process allowed me to draw upon formal colour theory which I applied to my work. In my current work, collecting and using feathers - a fascinating version of nature's palette - has become important.

I focus on ways to reconstruct and re-use textiles - expensive/cheap, high/low quality, purchased/found, recycled or discarded material. I integrate these into new pieces of wearable art. The fabric is torn into strips, knotted and knitted into various patterns and motifs, resulting in a 'new' product. Sometimes I construct a garment from these knitted materials.

Mentor Profile:
(Author: AAW)

Usha Seejarim recasts the ordinary as something worthy of attention. In her videos and installations, she slows down our looking and injects a sense of wonder into subjects as seemingly pedestrian as bus tickets, rice sacks, car lights, and morning shadows. Her work is a unique combination of aesthetic transformation, urban concerns, and her own South African-Indian heritage.

Most recently (2008), Usha Seejarim was nominated for the prestigious Mercedes-Benz award for public art and in 2007 was a finalist in the Sasol Wax Art Award. Her light-art installation 'The Why Men' for the Sandton Central Arts Programme in 2007/08 won the client a Business Day-Business and Arts South Africa Award for the Best Use of new Commissioned Art. This was not Usha's first experience working with light as a medium. Two years prior she was commissioned to make a Christmas Tree for Anglo American's annual project in Main Street, Johannesburg. Usha's installation for that was a metal frame, ordinary light bulbs in 'Fordsburg Buckets' decorated with crystals. She was also commissioned by MTN to make a chandelier for their head office - an installation which literally used one hundred and forty thousands safety pins.

She recently completed the Kliptown Commission for Walter Sisulu Square for the Johannesburg Development Agency, this work express the tenets of the Freedom Charter through 10 sculptural installations made of slate-stone (klippe).

In November 2008, in the midst of the 2008 edition of the Sandton Central Why Men project and some giant commissions Usha Seejarim graduated with a Masters in Fine Art from the University of the Witwatersrand.

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