Exhibited at the AVA Gallery in Cape Town South Africa in 2004
Mixed media Installation, Coal and Leaves
Photographs courtesy Jennifer Lovemore-Reed
-'Ginkgophylum Interconnectous'
Coal, Copper, Steel, Perspex
2004
Brooms, Coal, Tsjambok, Perspex, Port Jackson Willow, Black Vinegar, Steel
2004
Pharmakon Forest
Materials: Coal (Wakkerstroom Glossopteridales) on compressed wood pulp (Pinus
Patula, Pinus Caribea and Pinus Radiata). Wall installation made up of 5 black panels.
The panels may be considered something between painting and sculptural object.
I am interested in how the artwork forms a context for simultaneous contrast -
the contrast between the object as remnant and the object as a place for psychological processes and analogical repercussions. This piece was also used to investigate how the preconceived becomes ‘the ideal’ and how ‘the ideal’ obscures the experience of its construction. Preconception obscures experience. In this case, ‘the ideal’ is represented as a familiar, formal grid structure, which seems to attempt to order the surface plane. It is rendered via traditional or classical means (painting / sculpture), but its ‘perfect’, geometric grid form is partly obscured by the gestures, which come from intuitive decision-making and the (‘handmade’) application of organic matter. The use of coal, a material with associative qualities, further influences the perception of the work.
A horizontal line is formed by all five objects when positioned next to each other and this carries associative connotations of landscape. Coal, used as a material, adds dialogue about the relationship between time and its influence on physical (and conceptual) form. Forests of prehistoric plant clusters decomposed and were compressed and heated by the earth, over millions of years, to form coal.
A metaphorical ‘forest’ is formed by the ‘memory’ processes involved in conceptualizing experience. It is also during the processing of psychological form, that physical form (the object) is derived. The object brings new propositions for interpretation and analogy. The object both defines and obscures. ‘Pharmakon’ is a Greek word for something which is both a poison and a medicine.
Eucalyptus Leaves, Steel, Electricity, Lights, Transformer, Perspex, Fiberglass and Polyester resin, Copper.
2004
Fiber Glass, Foam, Bitchumen, Wood, Hemp, Copper, Lead, Polyester, Camphor Seeds, Eucalyptus Leaves.
2002
The Oil Spills, caused by an Oil Tanker sinking in the early 80's off the coast of Sea View, (out side of Port Elizabeth, South Africa),
caused severe damage to the eco system of coastal waters, rock pools ,vegetation and creatures. The obvious presence of the spills was on the rocks.
Covered in thick black gummy, difficult to remove oil. It remained on the rocks for many years.
In the early 90's, while I was walking on the rocks at Sea View, I discovered an object. It was a piece of foam sandwiched between two pieces
of thickly woven Fiber Glass with this same black gummy substance on it.
It seemed to me that this object had come from a boat or some kind of vessel or container?
Objects like this often washed up on the shore. I spent a lot of time wondering and imagining where these objects came from, the people out at sea,
lands far away, the sea creatures that encountered it, the salt and oil on it, the saturation and erosion, it had a kind of history or story?
I lived with this object for many years. I was not sure about why its presence was relevant, but it seemed to be something that needed to be lived with.
I discovered it again in a pile of stuff I had had in storage, when I returned in 1997 from living for two years in London to White River in Mpumalanga.
My enlightening 'European Experience' had left me with a need to embrace my African sensibility more deeply.
The property I was living on had a kaya at one end of it. A Shangan man by the name of Alfred Msumi , his third wife by the name of Emma (the sangoma)
and his son Elvis lived there.
Alfred had contracted HIV a few years before, with its symptoms being tuberculosis.
His wife was treating him by having him live in a small cave like structure made from a huge pile of thatch where she and Elvis performed healing rituals at night.
Every night for many months, there was a constant drum beat, chanting, drinking, smoking dagga, fighting and yelling late into the dark.
It was also during the time that many babies were being raped by men with AIDS, as this was believed to be a cure.
I spent a lot of time thinking about my practice and rethinking it. I found myself being in a kind of darkness for months on end.
I was reading Suzi Gabliks' Conversations before the end of time' and "The Re-Enchanment of Art'.
Joseph Beuys was in my thoughts a lot, particularly through a Body of Drawings he entitled:' Thinking is Form'.
It was during this period that I spent a lot of time working with this object , and other works began to emerge too.
With time, this object slowly became layered with materials that became a kind of relic from all the conversations that I would find myself having
because of these experiences, insights and with this object- wondering with it, thinking with it, imagining through it.
I found this environment, experiences and objects ability to orientate my sensibility by wondering, questioning and imagining to be valuable.
It seems that when we encounter an artwork, we have an opportunity and ability to rediscover our own sensibility from experiences, insights and wonderings.
An opportunity and ability to see how our thoughts may have been formed and how they maybe reshaped or re-enchanted?
I moved to Cape Town in 2000 and the object ,became what we see it as now, in 2002.
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