Bev Butkow portfolio Jan 2023

embodied-entanglements/entangled-embodiments – version 1 2020 Site-specific installation

Bag Factory Artist Studios, Newtown, Johannesburg

All images © Bev Butkow. Photos: Anthea Pokroy, Bev Butkow, Thekiso Mokhele

Bev Butkow creates handwoven semi-sculptural assemblages and multilayered installations that assert an other-worldly presence, immersing viewers in opaque fantasy-like worlds. These forms hold material, personal, and social metaphors.

Through her deeply material labour-intensive process, she gives texture to embodied experiences of women and re-imagines alternatives.

Her hand-weaving honours the tradition of craft, with its enmeshed relationship between maker and materials, while also generating a distinctive and contemporary point of entry to the artform. Each assemblaged-form is unique, having a singular organic shape and a distinctive combination of materials and mark-making. Each woven mark holds temporal and fragile traces of weaving’s consumption of materials and gendered labour. Thousands of tiny beads and mundane everyday materials and domestic objects––often textile or domestic related––are woven together. Making processes activate the materials into being, amplifying their vibrational intensity and material agency. Her forms grow into multi-layered sculptural masses that are set into the world flows with performative power. Here, the eclectic mix of everyday materials and scraps is celebratory and defiant.

statement

Butkow’s forms embody the traces of her labour and those of the people who work with her. Imprinted autographic traces of her entangled life as an maker-wife-mother-nurturer-woman-student-global citizen are captured within the woven constellations. Creating variation within the instinctive, repetitive, ritualistic and rhythmic motion of weaving enables her to interrupt habitual patterns of action and thought that have become sedimented within her body. Working with and through the body in this way, Butkow questions ways of being and knowing to shift and update her sense of the world.

Through practices that make-unmake-entangle-unravel-learn-unlearn-disruptarrange-rearrange, hers is an ongoing material and conceptual process of unravelling order, which is followed by attempts to make sense of disorder. Butkow’s process builds up to an intensity that breaks out of any confining reading.

Meaning is fugitive. Click here to see a video presentation on my practice

embodied-enTANglements/enTANgled-embodiments – version 2 Made with Heidi Stroh, Thandiswa Maxinyane, Cynthia Maxinyane, Menard Hunga 2021

Site-specific immersive installation Origins Centre Museum, Wits University, Johannesburg

embodied-entanglements/entangled-embodiments - phase 1 Made with Marguerite Sanders, Pinky Moyo 2020 Site-specific installation, Bag Factory Artist Studios

Shadow play 2021

P72 Project Space, Parkhurst, Johannesburg

Multiple Perspectives

Made with Heidi Stroh, Thandiswa Maxinyane, Cynthia Maxinyane, Menard Hunga 2022

Claiming my space 2020

Wool, string, rope, cord, ribbon, embodied traces of time/labour/exertion/conversation/instruction on wooden painting stretcher. Oil paint and fabric on canvas 2m x 2m x 3m

Made with Marguerite Sanders 2020 String, repurposed painting stretcher frame, embodied traces of time/ labour/exertion/creative process 130 x 130 cm

never static

Made with Thandiswa Maxinyane, Danily Hunga 2022

Wool, dressmaking scraps, string, ribbon, twine, disused wooden painting stretcher 175 x 245 cm

lines of flight

Made with Heid Stroh 2022

String, plastic cord, wooden slats, embodied traces of time/labour/exertion/conversation/instruction

Approx dimensions 150 x 150 cm

Unfurling in flight

Dressmaking scraps, ribbon, thread, plastic sheeting, lawnmower cord, glass and plastic beads, cable ties, insulation tape, fishing gut, string, wire, embodied traces of time/labour/exertion/conversation/ instruction, clothes hanger 64 x 41 x 50 cm (excluding hanging bits)

Made with Heidi Stroh 2021

A suggestiveness Made with Pinky Moyo 2020 glass, plastic, wood and metal beads, artificial pearls, fishing gut, string, embodied traces of time/labour/exertion/conversation/ instruction approx. 110 x 83 cm

Challenge the bounds of acceptability with Marguerite Sanders

Plastic mesh, repurposed canvas, fabric, ribbon, metal washers 2018

Variable size – approx. 106 x 92 x 20 cm

A moment of memories Made with Heidi Stroh 2022

Ribbon, plastic lawnmower cord, jewelry wire, dressmaking scraps, imitation pearls, string, wool, plastic beads, galvanized wire, embodied traces of time/labour/exertion/conversation/ instruction 88 x 137 cm

Everything to everyone

Made with Thandiswa Maxinyane 2022

Dressmaking scraps, ribbon, trash bags, dish washing clothes, embodied traces of time/labour/exertion/conversation/ instruction

No one ever won a Nobel prize for cleaning house Made with Thandiswa Maxinyane 2022 String, wool, dressmaking scraps, ribbon, galvanized wire, mettalic balloon, embodied traces of time/labour/exertion/conversation/ instruction

Biography

South African artist Bev Butkow (b. Johannesburg 1967) arrived late to the arts, first holding a paint brush at age 43. As a self-taught artist, she embraces an instinctive and incidental way of working, forging a unique path through her imaginative experimentation and exploratory playfulness. Re-orienting from her career in finance, she obtained a Master of Fine Arts with distinction from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 2022 under scholarship from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She has exhibited, inter alia, at the Dakar Biennale, Wits Origins Centre Museum, Wits Art Museum, 1-54 London, Cape Town Art Fair and Art Joburg. Her writing is published in academic journals and she has presented at academic conferences and workshops.

Butkow’s process-based practice is grounded in ritualistic making-practices and everyday materials, yet her handwoven semi-sculptural assemblages assert an ephemeral other-worldly presence. Tensions, contradictions and varied approaches to making pervade her process, which unfolds on multiple levels beyond the physical forms she makes. She uses mediums of weaving, painting and installation to assert her right to space as a woman and to question the spatial logic of traditionally well-behaved forms, speaking to the potential of unhinging our collective knowledge.

Grounded in her responsibility as an artist, maker, communicator and social actor, Butkow is deeply committed to social engagement and education. She co-founded a library in rural Limpopo and dedicated over a decade of service to the Board and management committee of 11 schools. Multiple complexities of personhood and place – her diverse life experiences and perspectives, artistic and corporate careers, academia, cultural influences of her traditional Jewish upbringing, community engagement, and roles as mother and wife – find form in her artistic and scholarly practices. Based in Johannesburg with her husband and four children, the city is key to her creative process. So too is her creative home, the Bag Factory Artist Studios, whose collaborative ethos mirrors an essential component of Butkow’s practice.

Curriculum Vitae

Selected biennials/triennals

2022 14th Dak’Art Biennial, titled 'Ndaffa / Forging / Out of the Fire, Dakar, Senegal

2022 Contextile Textile Talks, Portugal, curated by Lala de Dios

2021 Every Woman Biennial, London

2021 Interwoven Worlds, ACASA Triennial, Online

2020 IX Bienal World Textile Art- Chile, Online

Solo exhibition

2021 embodied-entanglements/entangled-embodiments, MAFA show, Origins Centre Museum, Wits University

2015 m/other, Lizamore & Associates, Johannesburg

Selected group exhibitions

2022 Rich in Fibre, curated by Dineke van der Walt, KKNK, National Arts Festival, Oudtshoorn

2022 Tomorrows/Today, curated by Nkule Mabaso and Luigi Fassi, Investec Cape Town Art Fair

2021 Bag Factory 30 Years: So Far, The Future, FADA Gallery, University of Johannesburg

2020 Darkest Before Dawn: Art in a Time of Uncertainty, Ethan Cohen KuBe, New York

2020 Tactile Visions–Woven, Curater Prof Sharlene Kahn, Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg

2018 The Art of Lithography: a collaborative expression of LL Editions, Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg

2018 Sister Sister, National Arts Festival, Makhanda

2018 Tobetsa: a huddling, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

2016 Thami Mnyele Fine Arts Awards Top 100 exhibition, Kempton Park

2016 District Six 50th Commemorative Print Exchange Portfolio Project, District Six Museum, Cape Town

Awards, grants & selections

2021 BodyIQ2021 Symposium, Berlin

2021 Wits School of Art RINC recipient

2021 Finalist, Nature/Nurture Competition, Brooklyn, USA

2020 Grant Recipient, Art: An Essential Need, artandaboutafrica

2019 Scholarship Andrew W Mellon: Governing Intimacies (GI) Project

2019 African Studies Journal writing retreat

2018 Africa’s top 20 new and exciting talent, Joburg Art Fair

2016 Johannesburg Council Chamber Totem Public Art Competition

2016 Post-Its, Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, 2015 Merit Award, SA Taxi Foundation Art Award

2015 Fresh Produce, Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg

2015 Winner, Assemblage Postcard Project competition

Residencies

2020 Nirox Sculpture Park, Cradle of Mankind, South Africa

2019 L’Air, Paris

Academic Publications

2020 [...] Ellipses Journal for Creative Research

2022 Image & Text Journal

Gallery representation

Guns & Rain

Art Fairs include 1-54, London, Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Latitudes Art Fair, Art Joburg, AKAA Art Fair, Paris. Group exhibitions at a variety of project spaces, including Point of Order, Nirox Project Space, P72 Project Space, Bag Factory, National Arts Festival, District Six Museum.

Curriculum Vitae - cont

Formal education

2022 Master of Fine Arts with distinction, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, under supervisor Dr Jessica Webster

2016–2017 Honours in Art History with distinction, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, under supervisor Dr Nicola Cloete and Dr Stacey Vorster

1985–1991 B.Com, B.Acc, CA(SA), H.Dip.Tax, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

Conference presentations

2021 Virtual Hugs 2021: Creating from precarious edges, , University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

2019 Material Narratives: Representations of public and private histories in cloth conference, University of Johannesburg

2019 Wits School of Arts Postgraduate Research Showcase, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

2018 Tobetsa: a huddling, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

2016 South African Research Chair in Southern African Art and Visual Culture conference

Informal education

2020 Drawing meditation with Katherine Bull

2019 Narrative Writing under Dr Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon

2019 Research trip, TextileLab, Tillburg, Netherlands

Ongoing Mentorships with: Nina Barnett, MAFA, University of Illinois, Chicago

Usha Seejarim, MAFA, Wits University, Johannesburg

Kim Lieberman, MAFA, Wits University, Johannesburg

2018 Paper making at Phumani Paper Archive Mill, University of Johannesburg

2016 WiCDS Decolonising Feminism

2016 School of Arts conference, UNISA

Contact details

bevbutkow@gmail.com +27-83-378-1981

Instragram bevbutkow

Bag Factory Artist Studios

10 Mahlatini Street Fordsburg

Johannesburg, 2092

Selected community involvement

Ongoing Established and ongoing support for a children’s library in Ponelopele in Botlokwa, Limpopo

2015–2021 Board, Management Committee member for 11 schools in Johannesburg

2015–2021 Chair, IT Steering Committee for 11 schools in Johannesburg

2020 Artmask for Kindness project

2018–2019 Bag Factory Project Selection Committee

2018 Mentor - David Koloane Painting Award winners

2018 Collaboration - Save the Children South Africa