Investigating conventions- NUDgE - a group exhibition

On Sunday 30th May 2010 at 4:30pm, Artspace Warehouse, 3 Hetty Ave Fairlands will launch with an exciting group exhibition titled 'NUDgE'. The show uses 'the nude' as a theme and consists of six young artists from Johannesburg and Pretoria who interpret this theme in a variety of media.

Sharlene Khan explores issues around her identity as a South African Indian woman artist, and the intersections of race, gender, class, education and religion that influences how she responds to the world and she thinks society views her. Through the mixed media photographic prints, she engages with external-internal perspectives of identity, the masks and masquerades people seem to don and enact daily, as well as the stereotypes that are used to reference her gendered racialised body. The visual dualism created in every work contrasts how she feels others view her against her own self-perceptions. The photographic images are embroidered, embossed, drawn and painted on - each mark and imprint destroying the pristine surface of the photograph much like identity marks a body.

Rather than making art where message, narrative and/or concept are key, Dylan Graham strives to work at each painting free of preconceived ideas and the baggage of art discourse, as far as is possible for the trained artist. Here a strange incongruity appears, as Graham can be regarded as a 'traditionalist', yet does not intend to appropriate or borrow from the past. Thus the artist's figures and portraits approach the psychological depth of Rembrandt's representations, and yet Graham has 'only' tried to paint - brushstroke for brushstroke, confronting the canvas in the language of the painterly medium: colour, surface, placing, light and dark, tactile presence. Graham can, and does, observe and represent, but the images are called forth with hermeneutic honesty and directness: not as renditions but as apparitions or 'guests' called forth by the artist's absence of attachment. In a vaguely numinous way, Graham's figures and objects appear from a non-specified depth (visually and psychically), as present-at-hand in the Heideggerian sense, neutrally reposing in themselves. The artist arrives at the canvas, labours without assumption, facilitates the artwork into being and, lastly, steps aside for the viewer to determine the outcomes and implications.

Cobus Haupt works in the classic tradition of western figure sculpture. Working from live models, the sculpture is first modelled in clay, and then cast in bronze. The bronze is cast by using the 'lost wax' method, which is all done by the artist. The double play between the sculpture as a physical object and a representation of an image of a person is a very important aspect in his work. The sculpture's physical existence as an object that was created, is emphasized by the traces of its production left on the surface of the work. These would include the cracks in the original clay model, casting lines, missed cast sections, welding, and the final chasing marks on the bronze.
The sculpture is an object: a piece of worked metal with a strong tactile sense.
The sculptures are recognisable reproductions of the models themselves and sometimes even recognised by the attitude and the feel of the work, rather than the physically correctness of the work. Cobus does not use any precise ways to measure the proportions of the models or the clay sculpture while working. Because of this, there are always some distortions in the works, which he believes helps to emphasize the unique qualities of the individual models. "Sometimes the sculptures lean more towards being aesthetic art 'objects' and at other times, more towards a representation of a person."

Sotiris Moldovanos places the viewer in a voyeuristic situation, whereby he either forces the viewer to intrude on the subjects' space or allow them to peak into the lives of strangers. The exclusion of eye-contact places the viewer and the subject in an unsettling feeling. Are we supposed to be there? Are we supposed to be staring? Sotiris uses bold, flat, bright colours which are juxtaposed against a soft, realistic figure, thus creating a surreal setting, which then makes us question the authenticity of the scene. He evokes different emotions allowing one to find similarities from their own lives.
We are presented with a kind of pop-realism to which we can easily find ourselves engrossed in.

Alet Pretorius says that photography broadens her view of the world and that being a photojournalist puts her in unfamiliar situations and, by recording such events, gives her a better understanding of people, cultures and traditions. "For Alet Pretorius, nostalgia lies not in remembering the detail, although her photographs have a documentary-like realism, but in the summoning of an emotion." - Pretoria News 2006 on Nostalgia (Group exhibition at Platform on 18th in Pretoria)

Douglas Prahm is involved in developing interdisciplinary conceptual drawing methods that require the mastery of fundamentals rather than industries abbreviated shorthand, based on the premise of creating "total designers" through a holistic approach to design. He is also experimenting with, and developing new rendering techniques capitalizing on the advent of high quality photo reproducing machines and scanners. The main themes of his artistic work revolve around the representation of the feminine cyborg in contemporary culture.
"The hand is an immediate conduit from the brain, by designing directly into a machine we circumvent this process and end up with work mediated by the software's preferences resulting in sterile, generic design. The computer needs to be bent to the will of the designer instead of the machine subtly manipulating the designer's choices at every turn and click. The purity of original vision can never occur if the design is entirely conceived within the narrow parameters of the machine" (Prahm 2009).

Biographies of the Artists:

Born in Durban, Sharlene Khan completed both a BA (Fine Arts) and MA (Fine Arts) at the University of Durban-Westville and a second Masters degree in Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand. She has participated in group exhibitions and international residency programmes locally and internationally. Her work for over nine years has focused on street trade in South Africa. Although primarily a painter, Khan's paintings are often presented with a range of media such as embroidery, ink and charcoal. Khan has also been extensively involved in various mural projects and is also a free-lance writer and curator.

Dylan Graham has completed a B-Tech(Fine Art) at Pretoria Technikon. Has participated in many group exhibitions around the country and recently held a successful solo exhibition at Artspace in Rosebank. Dylan is currently a lecturer at TUT.

Cobus Haupt has completed his B-Tech degree at the Technikon Pretoria in 1998. His exhibitions include two solo shows: one in Melville at 'Upstairs Bamboo' (2009) and one at 'Iart' in Cape Town (2009), as well as numerous group exhibitions around the country.

Sotiris Moldovanos has completed a B-Tech Fine Art degree from Pretoria Technikon (TUT) in 1999. He has held two solo exhibitions and been part of numerous group exhibitions in the past 10 years.

Alet Pretorius lives in Pretoria and obtained a BJourn from Rhodes University in 2001 and has since worked for various publications including Independent Newspapers in Natal, The Star and Beeld where she currently works as a Specialist Photographer.

Douglas Prahm graduated from WITS University in 2005 with an Honours degree in Fine Arts. He has participated in numerous art exhibitions and worked in production design and concept creation fields. He has been with the Design Center for five years and has developed interior design theory courses and been involved in creating recent illustration and rendering programs for the interior, multimedia and graphic design departments. His primary research area involves the relevance and application of traditional media techniques in the digital age.

The exhibition runs until the 26 June 2010
For more information about the exhibition:
Artspace
Teresa Lizamore - 011 880 8802
Sotiris Moldovanos 083 380 6888
Artspace@wol.co.za
www.artspace_jhb.co.za

For media enquiries:
Taryn Cohn
083 6715139
taryncohn@artsourcesouthafrica.co.za