RECORD OF WORKS FROM
THUPELO WORKSHOP FEBRUARY 4th - 14th 2018 AT GALLERY OF UNIVERSITY OF STELLENBOSCH (GUS)
GWENDOLYN MEYER 2018
http://www.thupelo.com/workshop/ THUPELO Stellenbosch 2018 at GUS Facilitator: Garth Erasmus, Greatmore Curator: Valerie Geselev, GUS
Thupelo is a two-week workshop that provides artists from diverse cultural, national and social backgrounds with a rare opportunity – to work with fellow artists in an intense, yet supportive environment. Our workshops are designed to encourage an exchange of ideas and experiences, resulting in personal artistic growth. Thupelo is the brainchild of Bill Ainslie and David Koloane, under the auspices of FUBA, FUNDA and the Johannesburg Art Foundation. The workshop was founded in 1985, the year of South Africa’s State of Emergency. Incited by the social constraints enforced by the Apartheid regime at the time – including the fact that black artists had no educational or professional facilities – the workshop provided an opportunity for artists to experiment, engage and learn from each other in a professional environment. Thupelo forms part of international Triangle Artists network of workshops, founded by Anthony Caro and Robert Loder. The Triangle network stretched across the world, and workshops have been hosted in countries including the USA, India, Botswana, Jamaica, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Wales to name a few. Nowhere else in the world has it flourished and survived for as long as it has in South Africa. source: www.thupelo.com
In February 2018 I was a participant in a Thupelo workshop at GUS Stellenbosch. Thupelo was a platform for processing through many ideas, working with mixed materials and creating art in a shared and inspired environment. This booklet is a record of the main themes I explored at the Thupelo workshop and some thoughts. Thupelo provided me an opportunity to practice, observe and learn. Although I arrived with a preconceived theme to work on, new ideas and avenues quickly emerged. At Thupelo inspiration came from the space and place we worked in, the participating artists, the facilitator and curator, and the materials provided. Gwendolyn Meyer Cape Town 2018
Early on, I explored the front outside porch of the gallery as a space to connect to the outside. The porch became a place to examine how people ‘intersect’. The two to four seats set out daily facing the busy street drew some people in. It also drew the participants together to chat and take a break and connect. In Take A Seat, shown on the next two pages, I photographed 32 connections sometimes by asking people to take a seat, sometimes by capturing those already seated.
Take A Seat, grid of 4 by 6 inch photo prints, printed on A2
Take A Seat, grid of 4 by 6 inch photo prints, printed on A2
In other work around ideas of connecting, the spontaneous performance work of participating artist, Wesile Mgibe (@wezilem) inspired my deeper exploration of praise, joy and the connections one has to the energy in the self.
I explored these connections in photography, in print and in painting. By exploring one idea in several mediums I was able to see how I think and ‘learn by making’ in layered ways and in parallel mediums. This understanding anchored my process in a refreshing new and wider practice. The range of mixed materials that were generously available to us as artists also influenced this approach .
Opposite page and this page: Centering, channel studies. Xerox print, oil pastel
Opposite page: Channel, ink, spray paint, acrylic on board, aproximately 21 cm by 21 cm This page: Centering, ink, spray paint, acrylic on paper, aproximately 19 cm by 21 cm
Centering, grid of 4 by 6 inch photo prints, printed on A2
The Gallery at University of Stellenbosch (GUS) used to be a church and the traditional architectural space provided a platform for installation.
Opposite page: Worskpace detail. This page: Totem, ink, paper cut out-Installation view with round mosaics pieces by mosaic artist Marcelino Manhula
The outside street side space was a natural extension of the interior workshop space for several artists at Thupelo, including myself. Camilla Changes is a series that reveals to me the intersecting social and physical spaces at Thupelo. In this work, Camilla, the GUS gallery Administration person, changes rapidly for Friday mosque. She does so on the busy street while ignoring social norms in her single minded focus to get ready. By capturing her actions in a photographic sequence, I reflect on the act of everyday life as performance, and the codes we use to signify social states and identity and how one can move between states.
Camilla Changes, detail
Camilla Changes, grid of 4 by 6 inch photo prints, printed on A2
In There is Enough, a hand painted sign is hung illegally on the back of a street sign. The aim of the message is to subvert the dominant way people are told to think in the public space, particulalry in the current drought’s communication climate.
Thank you GREATMORE , in Woodstock, Cape Town | DESIGN/IMAGES ©GMeyer