WAV Exhibition Catalogue

PEBOFATSO MOKOENA X FREDERICK CLARKE

23.03.2022 - 15.04.2022

X

PEBOFATSO MOKOENA X FREDERICK CLARKE

23.03.2022 - 15.04.2022

CATALOGUE

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PAG E 4

Pebofatso Mokoena, Taxi Unawares, 2021

acrylic on canvas, 129 × 98 cm

LE FT

Frederick Clarke, Scrabble, 2022

spraypaint on canvas, 180 x 200 cm

PEBOFATSO MOKOENA FREDERICK CLARKE

LE FT

Pebofatso Mokoena, Cosmic Boogeyboards, 2021

acrylic and oil pastel on canvas, 155.5 × 142.9 cm

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WAV is an exhibition of abstract inscriptions and compositions, harmonised by artists Pebofatso Mokoena and Frederick Clarke. Mokoena and Clarke invite us on an intimate and spectral journey that explores their artistic influences, combining elements of synaesthesia, mathematics, mark-making and nature to name a few.

Frederick Clarke, Visions (detail), 2022 spraypaint on plexiglass , 25 x 25 cm

Every painting is, among other things, a work of translation. The artist translates some kind of mental and/or emotional energy into material form: colour, shape, line. From this idea, then, a question: what gets lost or added on the way? How does the artist get from Point A (heart or mind) to Point B (canvas) without losing what is most important? Pebofatso Mokoena and Frederick Clarke are two artists who appear to be looking for the most uninhibited routes between their imaginations and experiences and material form.

When talking about an artwork, I like to start by talking about process. As an artist and specifically a painter myself, I find questions around approach to be incredibly instructive and telling. I want to know the how of beginning and undertaking the work itself, and whether there is joy or pain (or both) involved.

ELEMENTAL

by Thenjiwe Nkosi 09

Mokoena described having to break down his studio in his family garage in the late afternoon and rebuild in the morning. Clarke mentioned the health concerns of using spray-paint, and the eerie sensation of feeling like one is being poisoned by the very material one is using to work. Both talk about the body, the physical challenge. It occurs to me that the body is the beginning: the source and the means of action. The mind does not exist outside of it. The work comes from the body, is seen and felt by the body. Challenges of work and execution happen and are resolved there.

A two-person show invariably asks the viewer to think about the two artists together, and I am trying to speak about them in one breath, to find connections and make comparisons between their work. In doing this I am trying to find a unity in disparate elements—something Mokoena and Clarke are each attempting to do. ‘The paintings have to be a place where each mark speaks to the next one,’ Mokoena says. ‘Finding one ground where they can sit together.’

Layering thus creates the possibility of games and puzzles; it also, forcefully, brings the dimension of time into the painting, since layers, by definition, cannot be made simultaneously. Between different layers, Mokoena told me, there are ‘sometimes just a few hours, but sometimes there can be several days. I’ll stare and process it. I’ll notice that one particular part is attracting too much attention, so I know I’m going to have to figure out how to keep that - a colour, for instance - but then build on it…”

Questions of unity have always fascinated Abstract Expressionist painters. Since the middle of the last century, they have spoken about finding harmony (often in difference) on the visual plane, as well as being fascinated with ‘oneness’ from a philosophical point of view. The neurological phenomenon, ‘synaesthesia’, or ‘union of the senses’, has played a role too. A level of mystery surrounds the phenomenon, but it has been proposed that due to neural crossovers in the synesthetes’ brains, when they encounter one stimulus (such as a sound) another stimulus (a colour, for instance) occurs involuntarily in their minds.

Thinking about their work, I was grateful to be reminded of Alma Thomas’s Space series, especially her work Mars Dust (1972). These works were, in a sense, translations of her visions of what it looked and felt like in the newly explored territories of space. Thomas wanted to imagine how it felt, how that feeling could then be described in image, to convey the sensation of being in space, of space itself.

Both Mokoena and Clarke speak about synaesthesia as something they’re interested in (suffering from? blessed with?) and it is evident in the work that each is recording his own experiences of it, particularly in the realm of music. Both use musical terminology to explain their work, and music is a necessary part of their processes, intertwined with their paintings on a fundamental level. For Clarke: making it, exploring new genres of it; and for Mokoena: meticulously studying and working alongside it.

I often think of a painting as a repository for ideas. Ideas are stored in the image, which is thought through, arranged, made, set and displayed.

For each of these artists, the canvas is quite literally a receptacle for layers of information. It provides a place for an abundance of things—thoughts, ideas, data, memories, representations of feelings, gestures—to fall.

Clarke spoke about ‘paintings under paintings under paintings’.

‘Layering’, he says, ‘charges the surface with energy: there’s a texture and a history in the surface.’ He describes a game of taking risks, daring to go over something that’s actually working. ‘But clearly that’s the thing that has to go.’

Looking at Thomas’s work, I was also given pause to think about how our relationship with space, and the technologies of space, and technology in general, have changed since Thomas began this series. While Mokoena and Clarke are fascinated by technology, new and ancient, and what it means for their practices, it occured to me that both have chosen one of the most fundamental means of human expressions - mark-making - as their means to ‘speak’. Surely there is something in that to be understood not only with regards to them, but to each of us who sees this exhibition.

After the powerful waves of the past two years - persistent waves that are redefining what it means to be a human being experiencing life on earth - I somehow can’t look at this work outside of what it meant for these two human beings to make it. Mokoena and Clarke refer to an intimate relationship with their work, how the process involves risk-taking and working with traumatic experiences and histories. And yet the work does not feel heavy or imbued with suffering. Perhaps it is because both artists have been cultivating a new aspect of the process. Each spoke to me about having found joy in their working process: Clarke in experimenting with different styles and scales, and Mokoena in altering his perspective on life and work. Both described “enjoying” painting. To find new joy: it is no small thing. And it seems particularly heartening, amid all the waves, to be able to find joy, and foothold, in what is elemental.

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PEBOFATSO MOKOENA Pebofatso Mokoena was born in Alberton in August 1993, 8 months before South Africa’s first democratic elections. The artist completed his high school career at Bracken High School in 2011, acquiring both a distinction in Visual Art and the Design School Art Trophy. In 2014 he concluded his NDip (Visual Art) at the University of Johannesburg. In 2020, the artist completed his honours degree at the University of Witwatersrand (WITS) acquiring a distinction, and is currently working towards his Masters in Fine Art in the same institution.

Emerging from early practice in drawing and printmaking, Mokoena’s painting practice is formally underscored by precise mark-making and division of space, while exploring ideas around micro and macro maps of politics, visual art, architecture and the environment, which is, in theory, getting smaller and smaller.

R IG HT

Pebofatso Mokoena, Idle Iterations, 2021

acrylic on canvas, 128.5 × 98.5 cm R48,200 incl. vat

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Pebofatso Mokoena, Taxi Unawares, 2021 acrylic on canvas, 129 × 98 cm R48,200 incl. vat

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Pebofatso Mokoena, MARS, 2021 acrylic on canvas, 129.2 × 99 cm R48,200 incl. vat

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Pebofatso Mokoena, Chimurenga Riddims, 2021 acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 78 × 68 cm R48,200 incl. vat

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Pebofatso Mokoena, Cosmic Boogeyboards, 2021 acrylic and oil pastel on canvas, 155.5 × 142.9 cm R48,200 incl. vat

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Pebofatso Mokoena, Delta Echo, 2020 acrylic on canvas, 130 × 100 cm R42,000 incl. vat

Pebofatso Mokoena, Ismschisms, 2020 acrylic on canvas, 130 × 105 cm R42,000 incl. vat

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Pebofatso Mokoena, Ace’s Evil Eye, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 66.2 × 67.2 cm R42,000 incl. vat

Pebofatso Mokoena, Time Warp Mechanics, 2020 acrylic and oil pastel on canvas, 126 × 96 cm R22,000 incl. vat

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FREDERICK CLARKE Frederick Clarke was born in 1986 in South Africa, and currently lives and works in Johannesburg. He completed a BA Fine Arts degree at the University of Witwatersrand (WITS), and has since worked as an artist, music producer and curator of creative projects.

Frederick Clarke’s work manifests in multiple mediums, including painting, wall murals, printmaking, installation, light-boxes, drawings, video, and original music produced under the alias “Mathroom”. Clarke works intuitively and is inspired by mathematics, synaesthesia, human/tribal origins, nature and technology, as well as organic/intuitive language and symbols. He creates an ongoing textural and compositional link between his visual and audio compositions with the intention to evolve both visual and sonic languages into new forms of expression.

R IG HT

Frederick Clarke, Red Line, 2019

ink and pastel on paper, 88 x 67 cm R30,000 incl. vat

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LE FT

Frederick Clarke, Game Theory, 2022

linocut collage and ink on paper, 88 x 67 cm R30,000 incl. vat B E LOW LE FT

Frederick Clarke, Scripts, 2019

ink on paper, 88 x 62 cm R30,000 incl. vat B E LOW R IG HT

Frederick Clarke, Tectonic, 2020

ink & collage on paper, 79 x 58 cm R30,000 incl. vat

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LE FT

Frederick Clarke, Scrabble, 2019

ink on paper, 85 x 59 cm R30,000 incl. vat B E LOW LE FT

Frederick Clarke, Eye See , 2019

ink & pastel on paper, 88 x 67 cm R30,000 incl. vat B E LOW R IG HT

Frederick Clarke, Red Line , 2019

ink & pastel on paper, 88 x 67 cm R30,000 incl. vat

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Frederick Clarke, Dust for the Lord, 2022 acrylic on canvas , 122 x 183 cm R50,000 incl. vat

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Frederick Clarke, The Ghosts of, 2022 spraypaint on canvas , 180 x 200 cm R80,000 incl. vat

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Frederick Clarke, Apoptosis, 2022 acrylic, spraypaint and pastel on canvas , 180 x 200 cm R80,000 incl. vat

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Frederick Clarke, Greater & Lesser, 2022 acrylic on canvas , 200 x 200 cm R80,000 incl. vat

Frederick Clarke, Together, 2022 acrylic on canvas , 200 x 200 cm R80,000 incl. vat

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Frederick Clarke, Marvel Hill, 2022 acrylic and spraypaint on canvas , 180 x 200 cm R80,000 incl. vat

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Frederick Clarke, Sunblind, 2022 acrylic and spraypaint on canvas , 180 x 200 cm R80,000 incl. vat

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Frederick Clarke, Here’s a Song For You, 2022 enamel and oil on canvas , 180 x 200 cm R80,000 incl. vat

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Frederick Clarke, Slipknot, 2022 spraypaint on plexiglass , 25 x 25 cm R8,000 incl. vat

Frederick Clarke, The Woods, 2022 spraypaint on plexiglass, 25 x 25 cm R8,000 incl. vat

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Frederick Clarke, Tattoo, 2022 spraypaint on plexiglass , 25 x 25 cm R8,000 incl. vat

Frederick Clarke, Visions, 2022 spraypaint on plexiglass , 25 x 25 cm R8,000 incl. vat

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Frederick Clarke, Komodo, 2022

Frederick Clarke, Chemistry, 2022

spraypaint on plexiglass , 25 x 25 cm

spraypaint on plexiglass , 25 x 25 cm

R8,000 incl. vat

R8,000 incl. vat

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Frederick Clarke, Harpy, 2022 spraypaint on plexiglass , 25 x 25 cm R8,000 incl. vat

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