Lizelle Kruger at Salon91

Award-winning fine artist Lizelle Kruger is exhibiting a body of works – with the “Voortrekker nude” as main subject – in a solo exhibiton at Salon 91 in Cape Town.

In her seminal exhibition entitled Karoo-kado’tjies, this visual raconteur delivers a collection of engaging works. The exhibition title may be translated as “small gifts from the Karoo”. “Kado” is derived from the French word “cadeaux”, which means “present”. These “kado’tjies”, or small gifts, form part of the objects from the artist’s past with which she likes to surround herself.

Lizelle says all the works created for the ‘Karoo-kado’tjies’ exhibition have their origin somewhere between Merweville and Sutherland. “After visiting my uncle Willem and aunt Jenny, who reside in Sutherland, I discovered a world that for a long time was buried under the dust in the attic of my memories. My family took me on a nostalgic tour to the winter farm of my grandfather Kallie.

“Thus the story began to unfold, many years of bittersweet memories, and ‘trekking’ with sheep between my grandfather’s farms in Merweville and Sutherland. Familiar places, smells, sounds and memories served to transport me back to my childhood and Christmas holidays spent in the Karoo.

“It’s only in the Karoo that I can become myself again. The Karoo is full of ‘kado’tjies’. The dry, outstretched plains unfold to expose their ‘kado’tjies’ to you in a silent manner, whether hidden away in a beautiful sunset that vanishes over Windheuwel’s koppies, or a ‘koesnaatjie’ that can feed your soul with its succulent beauty.”

Kruger’s oil paintings, executed largely on found wood and canvas, express the Post Modern Afrikaner’s concern for their homeland, and by extension a concern for their culture and language.

However, these forgotten tales of the Afrikaner, which the artist depicts with a touch of tongue-in-cheek humour, speak not only of the transience of a particular culture, but on a far broader level of the transient natures of youth and of the self, capturing the fundamental paradox of human ideals verses the reality of nature.

The exhibition opens on 24 March and willl be on until 23 April 2011. More information: info@salon91art.co.za, 021 424 6930