Gallery 2 Autumn Exhibition Catalogue May 2018

AUTUMN EXHIBITION May 2018

ROSEMARY JOYNT, ROSS PASSMOOR GABRIЁL HUGO AND KYRA PAPÉ

138 Jan Smuts Ave Parkwood | T: 011 447 0155/98 | Email: gots@mweb.co.za | www.gallery2.co.za

ROSEMARY JOYNT

New Paradigm, Oil on paper, 76 x 61 cm, 2017 Framed Size: 73.5 x 90.5 cm

"New Paradigm" is a set of abstract landscapes. They seem otherworldly and alien; new examples of what landscapes could look like in future.

Behemoth, Oil on paper, 36.5 x 45 cm, 2017 Framed Size 54 x 61 cm

"Behemoth" is a mighty mythical animal, enormous and powerful. In this piece, the mountain and clouds look ominous, much like a slouching beast.

Rise and Fall Oil on Canvas, 87.5 cm x 104.5 cm

The title of the painting "Rise and Fall" relates to cycles and the options we are faced with; whether they are life-affirming or destructive. The painting was inspired by a series of photographs I took of titanium-rich sand along the Wild Coast. It is particularly pertinent now as the people of Xolobeni are awaiting judgement on a court case. They are opposed to an Australian mining company extracting titanium from their ancestral land and ruining their land and livelihood in the process.

ROSS PASSMOOR

As part of the artist’s creative PHD at the Wits School of Art, Ross examines some of the ongoing moments of making that constitute artist practice. His exhibitions, Afterlife, currently on show at the Wits Art Museum, seeks to offer through an ongoing series of alterations and engagements, a cross section of this particular research process that is without beginning or end. Afterlife Builds on Tunnel Vision, a solo exhibition at The Point of Order in 2017, which explored an 800-metre abandoned train tunnel running under suburban Hilton in KZN. Taking the experience of walking through the tunnel as a starting point, Ross Passmoor interrogated the relationship between past and present by exploring the tunnel as a ruin in addition to a monument. The result was a series of installations and sculptures made from materials he worked with at the original site, as well as materials found in his garden in Blairgowrie and surrounding suburbs.

This entanglement of past and present is further developed in his practice as he explores some of the ways in which the use of discarded materials can generate a sense of history and a rootedness to place. Through display, Ross questions the materials previous life in relation to an as yet unarticulated future. The problems and potentials of translating time and space find resonance in the accumulated afterlife of found materials collected around Johannesburg suburbia.

Tunnel Vision 1, Mixed media on Canvas, 1.5 x 1.5 m

Tunnel Vision 2, Mixed media on Canvas, 1.5 x 1.5 m

Tunnel Vision 3, Mixed media on Canvas, 1.5 x 1.5 m

Tunnel Vision 4, Mixed media on Canvas_ 1.5 x 1.5 m

Preparatory Print B1, Relief Monotype on Fabriano, 100 x 70 cm, 2018

Preparatory Print B2, Relief Monotype on Fabriano, 100 x 70 cm , 2018

Preparatory Print B4, Relief Monotype on Fabriano, 100 x 70 cm , 2018

Preparatory Print B5, Relief Monotype on Fabriano, 100 x 70 cm , 2018

Preparatory Print B6, Relief Monotype on Fabriano, 100 x 70 cm , 2018

Preparatory Print B7, Relief Monotype on Fabriano, 100 x 70 cm , 2018

Preparatory Print B8, Relief Monotype on Fabriano, 100 x 70 cm , 2018

Preparatory Print B9, Relief Monotype on Fabriano, 100 x 70 cm , 2018

Preparatory Print B10, Relief Monotype on Fabriano, 100 x 70 cm , 2018

Preparatory Print B11, Relief Monotype on Fabriano, 100 x 70 cm , 2018

Preparatory Print B12, Relief Monotype on Fabriano, 100 x 70 cm , 2018

Preparatory Print BB, Relief Monotype on Fabriano, 100 x 70 cm , 2018

GABRIËL HUGO

Gabriël Hugo’s current body or artwork focusses on three main themes: The Memory Series; Blurred Lines; and Imposed Landscapes. Each series focuses on complimentary narratives.

The Memory Series explores Identity through the duality of memory and experience.

Personal Identity is shaped by past experience. Our current thoughts and actions are all influenced by layers of memory and assigned meaning, determining our response to our immediate present.

With time, our memories become blurred, edited, adapted and forgotten. Details of unrelated experiences often bleed together to create a false or reconstructed memory of the event. Locke’s theory on Personal Identity explains that if one has a memory of an experience, then it is proof that it happened. The inverse stating that if one can’t remember an event, it never happened. The artwork in this series explores the principle of redacted memories, often constructed to serve our current reality.

Similarly, the work employs mixed media to explore these layers, by use of ink, charcoal, oil and pastel. Each work has the same starting point, with the same progression of layers and techniques. A repetition of events, each relying on chance to evolve into something different. The techniques used in the works, combine a sequence of rapid mark-making and repetitive patterning, followed by a calculated censoring or obscuring of the underlying detail layers; finally overlaid with new patterns and meaning. Pockets of thoughts, memories and symbols, grouped together to create new visual meaning through shape and chance proximity.

The Blurred Lines series is a small collection of works as a continuation of the memory theme, where colour and form are reduced to a minimalist composition of colour field and mark-making.

Gabriël Hugo (c.1982) lives and works in Johannesburg. He holds a BSc in Interior Architecture and Bachelors of Fine Arts from University of Pretoria.

Untitled (17.10.002), Oil and mixed media on paper, paper size 55.5 x 90.5 cm

Untitled (17.10.003) , Oil and mixed media on paper, paper size 55.5 x 90.5 cm

Untitled (17.10.006) , Oil and mixed media on paper, paper size 55.5 x 90.5 cm

Blurred Lines 1, Oil and mixed media on paper, paper size 40.5 x 55 cm

Blurred Lines 2, Oil and mixed media on paper, paper size 40.5 x 55 cm

Blurred Lines 3, Oil and mixed media on paper, paper size 40.5 x 55 cm

Blurred Lines 4, Oil and mixed media on paper, paper size 40.5 x 55 cm

Blurred Lines 5, Oil and mixed media on paper, paper size 40.5 x 55 cm

Blurred Lines 6, Oil and mixed media on paper, paper size 40.5 x 55 cm

Blurred Lines 7, Oil and mixed media on paper, paper size 40.5 x 55 cm

Blurred Lines 8, Oil and mixed media on paper, paper size 40.5 x 55 cm

KYRA PAPÉ

Bodies are temporary entities; they are unstable and always in a state of change, yet their change retains its bio-chemical structure. The structure is contained while the body goes through transformations on a habitual basis. The body as a form is thus in a conversational tension with itself, pushing upon its own boundaries. My artistic practice has for the most part been a direct response to my physical experiences. I work specifically with melted sugar and engage with it in relation to my severe allergy with it and how the alien relation manifests through art.

My body of work focuses on materials and materiality in order to engage with how encounters between the object, material and viewer are able to evoke a sensual and metaphorical experience.

Whilst having a focus on materiality and the object-material-viewer embodiment, I explore materials and their fluid existence. My work also explores the conversation between two manifestations of form; the contained and the fluid. The amorphous (shapeless mass) and geometrical mark making are explored in relation to the temporal and ever-changing material of the sugar, which aims to speak towards issues around the abject and the uncanny. My primary interest is in the boundaries or nonboundaries that are being pushed, destabilised or contained. The sugar once melted is in an everlasting state of change, through which the chemical structure allows for transformational moments to occur, moments that disrupt stagnant structures.

Kyra PapĂŠ is a Johannesburg based artist working predominantly in sculpture, printmaking and drawing with a focus on melted sugar. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Fine arts and a Master of Arts in Fine Arts from the University of Witwatersrand.

Abyss I, Monotype - Ink and melted sugar on paper, 39 x 28 cm, 2018

Echo I, Monotype - Ink and melted sugar on paper, 39 x 28 cm, 2018

Abyss II, Monotype - Ink and melted sugar on paper, 39 x 28 cm, 2018

Echo II, Monotype - Ink and melted sugar on paper, 39 x 28 cm, 2018

Abyss III, Monotype - Ink and melted sugar on paper, 39 x 28 cm, 2018

Echo III, Monotype - Ink and melted sugar on paper, 39 x 28 cm, 2018

Abyss IV, Monotype - Ink and melted sugar on paper, 39 x 28 cm, 2018

Echo IV, Monotype - Ink and melted sugar on paper, 39 x 28 cm, 2018

151.50 (Hours), Ink and Sugar on Fabriano, Paper size: 100 x 210 cm, 2018

138 Jan Smuts Ave Parkwood. T: 011 447 0155/98 F: 011 447 7645 P. O. Box 1664 Rivonia 2128. Email: gots@mweb.co.za, www.gallery2.co.za