The city of gold comes alive this weekend with two unmissable art events.

There will be no grumbling that there’s nothing to do in Joburg this weekend, as the city explodes with not one but two major art gatherings, The RMB Latitudes Art Fair and Contra.Joburg. 

RMB Latitudes Art Fair

The RMB Latitudes Art Fair returns to Joburg for a second year, from the 24^th to the 26^th May. Galleries and artists from South Africa and further afield will showcase their art at Shepstone Gardens. This curated celebration of African art aims to create a collaborative and unique art ecosystem, which is inclusive, accessible, and uniquely African. The beautifully lush three-acre venue will be divided into different hubs and spaces, from Marble Halls to secret gardens and rooftop pavilions and includes some yummy food and wine too. 

40 galleries and 250 artists will be taking part, including international and African galleries from Germany, Spain, and London, as well as Nigeria, Uganda, Egypt, and Botswana. And of course, loads of local favourites are participating too, including Everard Read, Gallery MOMO and Kalashnikovv Gallery, to name just a few. There is something for the design fans too, as Pichulik, Guillotine Design, Romaria Knitwear, Studio Kalki and The Herd will be on hand for some much-needed retail therapy. 

Worth a special mention is ESSAY, a project that focuses on the dream-like work and artistic lives of artist couple, Wendy Vincent and Geoffrey Armstrong. Co-curated by Vincent Truter and Lucy MacGarry, it brings together select pieces from a body of work created over the past 25 years, in the couple’s Magaliesburg Rock Garden. The exhibition of eight prints and four paintings by Vincent and four sculptures by Armstrong, is a dialogue with each other, their rock garden landscape, and their exploration of natural phenomena. 

Latitudes has a great line-up of events, including walkabouts, talks and lectures, and an exciting children’s programme hosted by the IMBALI Visual Literacy Projects and Akasha School. 

Tickets are R300, and kids are R50 | Latitudesartfair.com. 

Contra.Joburg

Also, up this weekend, and just as exciting is Contra.Joburg which takes place on the 25^th and 26^th May. This one-of-a-kind event offers an amazing opportunity for Jozi residents to get out in their city and immerse themselves in art. 13 artist studios and 200 artists will be taking part and for the collectors (and wannabee collectors), artworks start at a reasonable R1000. 

Ticket price includes a safe and easy hop-on hop-off shuttle service so you don’t have to worry about finding your way around the busy city. Just some of the participating spaces are August House, the Rand Club, Victoria Yard, Ellis House, and Nando’s Central Kitchen. 

Founder and organizer Sara Hallatt says “If we operate from the belief that art is important in society, then we need to support artists. Artists don’t get paid to make, and they make everything at risk.  Contra.Joburg aims to change that for many artists who are working across the city of Joburg.”   

Each day has a different programme and activities that include exhibitions, printing workshops, graffiti tours and demonstrations, an interactive kid’s area, walkabouts, panel discussions and jazz.  

Two noteworthy events are Art, Wine, and Design at Nandos’ Central Kitchen on Sunday 26 May. Take a tour of Nando’s head office which boasts a plethora of local design, or enjoy an art, design, and wine experience, where you can meet designers, taste some wine, and explore Creative Block artworks. 

Or why not join the Red bus hop-on hop-off tour with Thabo the Tourist on Saturday 25 May, which takes place on the open top CitySightseeing bus and includes visits to artist studios and art destinations participating in Contra.Joburg, before winding its way to the RMB Latitudes Art Fair. 

Tickets start from R85, different venues are open on different says. Ticket holders must register for each venue | Contrafair.joburg.

Looking for more local art? Sign up to our weekly newsletter, here.

The post Art in the City  appeared first on Visi.

Shany van den Berg’s latest exhibition at Joburg’s Everard Read, ‘Garden of Her Dreams’ is an earthen romance of bird, bronze and bouquet.

‘Garden of Her Dreams’ is a continuation of Shany‘s painterly, sculptural and human exploration of nature, womanhood and the artist’s place in the world. An evolution of her 2022 solo in London, ‘Her Garden’, it is a luscious dialogue between familial and seasonal cycles of life. Informed by a devotion to plant life as passed from mother to daughter, it narrates memories and knowledge of people, wilderness and the intersection thereof.

A profusion of flowers in her daily life, both real and translated into image, pollinates Shany’s ‘ongoing exploration of the symbolism and evocative powers of flora. For the artist, the delicate petals of flowers carry the weight of ‘love, passion, purity, innocence and death’. In this way, her garden – literal or painted – is where soul and body go to rest and be restored

Toward reflecting the nuances of sanctuary in this body of work, Shany brings the outdoors into the canvases’ nocturnal narratives through intricate floral arrangements – as inspired by her own sculptures, dreams and impressions. Each painted flower is treated as a portrait, while each female form references iconic reclining nudes by masters like Delacroix, Velázquez and Moore, the women also denote Gaia – nurturer of all.

‘Garden of Her Dreams’ is on show form 22 June to 22 July 2023 at Everard Read. For more information, visit everard-read.com.

Looking for more local art? Sign up to our weekly newsletter, here.

The post ‘Garden of Her Dreams’ by Shany van den Berg X Everard Read appeared first on Visi.

In South Africa, portraiture has a long and complex history. VISI gets up close and personal with a proliferation of artists who are tackling, refreshing and advancing the genre.

It’s funny to think that, 100 years ago, art historians thought traditional portraiture and figurative painting had run their course. But portraiture never went away; it continued to evolve and develop. In fact, there has been a recent explosion in the genre around the world as well as at home.

“There’s a lot going on with portraiture in South Africa,” confirms Everard Read’s Grace O’Malley. An exhibition of three portrait-style works by Ayanda Mabulu, titled “The Healers”, ran at Everard Read’s Circa Gallery in June and July. At the same time, an exhibition by Joni Brenner, “Between You and Me: Four Models in the Studio”, ran at SMAC Gallery in Johannesburg. “Who We Should Not Be”, an exhibition of mixed-media portraits by Navel Seakamela, was on display at Southern Guild in June and July too. And that’s just scratching the surface.

Works from Joni Brenner’s “Between You and Me: Four Models in the Studio” exhibition at SMAC Gallery in Johannesburg.

There has been much interest in the upcoming Zeitz MOCAA exhibition “When We See Us”, which concentrates on black portraiture and figuration, via the webinar series that has been running throughout the year leading up to its opening in November. Arisha Maharaj, an art specialist at auctioneers Strauss & Co, curated a themed sale that focused on portraits earlier this year, so the interest has clearly gained traction in the secondary market too. The headline work on that sale – a self-portrait by Heather Gourlay-Conyngham entitled Self in Jan’s Turban – which went on sale with an estimate of between R20 000 and R30 000, sold for almost R130 000.

Grace ventures that the recent international interest in work by Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo resulted in high-profile auction sales at Sotheby’s, and sparked an international focus on collecting contemporary African portraiture. But, she adds, “In South Africa, with our history of racist ethnographic photography and problematic artworks by white/European artists of black subjects, there is a significant power shift in portraiture being created by black artists of black subjects in a new political context.”

A prime example might be Zanele Muholi. “Zanele’s contributions to the genre of portraiture have been important declarations of personhood, both for themselves and for others,” says Sinazo Chiya, associate director at Stevenson, who represents Muholi. “In a country still battling the hangover of erasure and misrepresentation, their images say that to be deemed a deviant or inferior is not a statement to internalise. Rather, power, grace and beauty belong to all who claim them.”

Another curator, who preferred not to be named, agrees. “I feel that the first step towards taking back agency for the depiction of black experience is the portrait or self-portrait – the face and the body become the template, the entry point, the synthesis of everything; these also allow the viewer/audience a very tangible and undeniable point of human relatability.”

The power of the work of someone like Muholi has set the bar. As Sinazo says, “The portraits in ‘Faces and Phases’ and ‘Brave Beauties’ specifically are radical monuments to and for people who have been written out of history, called un-African, even killed. In Somnyama Ngonyama, their heroic and deeply sensitive images rewrite a myopic and victimhood-oriented narrative of blackness.”

History Matters

There has, however, been a growing tide of thought that finds that the proliferation of portraiture among contemporary artists is in danger of becoming a victim of its own success. The same tired tropes are growing banal through thoughtless repetition as fashion tempts more and more artists to forgo originality for what they think resonates right now.

While that is certainly true, at the same time, the treatment of the genre seems to be shifting gears again. As Grace says, “I think it’s important that contemporary African portraiture be seen in a wider context, and not as a fashion trend led by European and American art markets.”

Tandazani Dhlakama, assistant curator at Zeitz MOCAA, who is working on “When We See Us”, says the exhibition will bring a new level of reflection and complexity to the topic of portraiture and figuration, not least by “reminding everyone that black artists have been painting themselves for a very long time… So whatever you see today is part of a really important historical continuum.”

It’s important, she says, for audiences to be reminded that black portraiture is not simply about “reacting to a hegemony”. The webinars and exhibition will explore “important artistic lineages, artistic schools and different events that have shaped culture on the African continent or within black worlds”.

Like Sinazo, she emphasises the importance not of narratives of victimhood and suffering, but “black joy”. Portraiture and figuration, she notes, are an excellent vehicle for depicting the “idea of repose, the resting [or] seated figure, the reclining figure, and the thinking, pondering figure”. It’s a clear theme in Seakamela’s work at Southern Guild. As Tandazani points out, by joining contemporary depictions of joyousness as well as the quotidian, and filling out a non-reactionary history, both the genre and black subjectivity are given complexity. What she calls “black worlds” – both in Africa and the diaspora – has had its future made more complex by delving more deeply into its past.

Looking for more local art? Sign up to our weekly newsletter, here.

The post Face Time: South African Portraiture appeared first on Visi.

A return to an ancient sense of connectivity and present-day existential exploration is brought to life – CHANT is currently on show until 28 May 2021 in Cape Town. Here, the internationally acclaimed, Faith XLVII, shares insights on work, the depth of her process and more.

Tell us more about the repetition of symbolism in your exhibition and why that resonates with you?

I work with ongoing thematics that I explore over time. One being the archetypal figure of the horse, its relationship to man in terms of its subservience, loyalty and inherent power. Other imagery that threads through my work are flags, maps, currency, the female form, animals and the use of found objects.

Over time, the metaphors start to tell a story and the artworks start to communicate with each other. I am interested in this dialogue and how I can intuitively bring about conversations through a visual language that transcends a purely logical explanation but speak to our deeper innate ability to interpret symbols, signs, metaphors and parables. 

Can you tell us about your creative process? We’re keen to know if it’s a form of meditation to you and how it helps you connect with your subconscious?

I made a decision years ago that my creative process needed to be closely linked to my own personal, spiritual, emotional and intellectual understanding of the world. So in my studio I do make use of ritual, ceremony research and contemplation. Creating art is a cathartic and deeply moving experience. My creative process is sacred. We project meaning onto objects like talismans, family photographs, charms, a gift from our grandmother. I want my works to be such. Embedded. 

For artists who are still figuring it out or starting out – do you have any advice when it comes to finding their own style?

My work is diverse and I have allowed myself a lot of freedom in terms of medium and ’style’. Where some artists may stick to the safer formula of creating a definitive style and sticking to it for their entire career, it is my opinion that the ethos and feeling of the artist behind the work will show through on all the work you do because you inherently have a personality or identity that becomes imprinted onto the things that you make. 

However, one does need to be thoughtful and intentional about the narrative and storyline of your career (which is essentially your life). So there is definitely instinctual production, but there is also well-considered planning in all of my work. 

What do you hope people who experience CHANT will take from it?

The work for this show was intentionally made without thinking too much about how it would be received. As a public (street) artist, I often have to think about the viewer and the community around my works and how the work embeds into the area around it, but with this exhibition, I wanted to make work that was raw, that reflected the issues and situations that we are facing. That is brutal and honest and unapologetic. These artworks I needed to express.

What people will take from it? Hopefully contemplation on some of the topics. 

Deeper shifting on considering our place in the world. Our connections to each other.  I think the work also does reflect (some aspects of) the South African experience, and I believe that experience has a lot to contribute to the world at large.

Connect with Faith XLVII on Instagram and keep up with the latest from Everard Read by visiting their website.

Looking for more? Read about Faith XLVII’s special collab with Hennessy.

The post Faith XLVII’s Latest Exhibition Opens at Everard Read appeared first on Visi.

The 10th annual FNB Art Prize has been awarded to Cape Town-based visual artist Laura Windvogel, aka Lady Skollie.

“As someone who never fit in, someone who dropped out of art school, someone who only got South African representation at the age of 31, winning a local art prize makes me feel like my existence in it is validated,” she says.

Image credit: Stuart Whipps. Courtesy East Side Projects, Birmingham.

Her striking works revolve around themes of identity, gender, sex and lust. Represented by the gallery Everard Read, Lady Skollie will be holding her second solo exhibition at the Cape Town gallery from 11 November 2020. Entitled BOUND, the exhibition “references writings by and about women in captivity, women in isolation, woman in shackles, chains, manacles and collars; she wonders about cages, revenge, tunnels with light at the end but more times absolute darkness and a life spent expecting to be released from evil.”

As the 10th recipient of the FNB Art Prize, she receives a page online for FNB Art Joburg, taking place from the 6 – 18 November, a cash prize and an international residency.

The winner of the FNB Art Prize was chosen by a committee, which included Khwezi Gule (Chief Curator, Johannesburg Art Gallery), Aspasia Karras (Publisher: Sunday Times Lifestyle, Edit, Edit Man, Business Day Wanted and Sowetan Magazine) and Nicole Siegenthaler (FNB Art Joburg Fair Manager).

Follow Lady Skollie on Instagram to keep up to date with her work.

The post FNB Art Prize Winner 2020: Lady Skollie appeared first on Visi.

After the success of Everard Read‘s first digital exhibition, entitled Staring Straight To The Future, which raised almost R1.4 million for the Solidarity Fund in a week, the gallery has put together another collection of its celebrated artists.

The title of the second digital exhibition Us, chosen after one of the pieces by Brett Murray, poses the question within the context of a country in lockdown: How much more are we all “Us” now? Once again, 50% of the proceeds will be donated to the fund.

Us by Brett Murray.

With galleries in Cape Town, Johannesburg, London and Franschhoek, the idea was conceived by Everard Read as a way to support its artists and contribute to the collective effort to assist those whose lives have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. “The response from artists and collectors alike was remarkable,” says the gallery’s director Charles Shields of the first exhibition.

“When deciding to pursue these exhibitions, we had no idea whether there was an audience at all, given the major concerns at this time and the economic repercussions faced by many. What was remarkable was that, within minutes of sending out the announcement to our database, we had nearly 300 requests for the catalogue. While nothing can replace seeing a work of art in the flesh, we’ve been heartened to see the response to the collection of images audiences can view online.”

The Good Shepherd 2 by Ignatius Mokone.

Featured artists include the likes of Beezy Bailey, Deborah Bell, Nelson Makamo, Ricky Dyaloyi and Sanell Aggenbach, amongst others. Charles noted that in selecting these two bodies of work, it was striking how poignant the artworks had become in the context of an impending universal lockdown and a time of isolation and separation from so much of what makes us human.

Banana by Sanell Aggenbach.

“Industry, community, nature, exercise, revelry – whipped away in the space of a few weeks for an indeterminate time, leaving us to practice the more subtle arts of being human: restraint, compassion, meditation, contemplation, interiority. These are the preserve of artists most of the time, who almost invariably work in isolation. Certainly a lot of good art emanates from some form of inner struggle with life, and so it follows that in a time of adversity it can act as a sort of balm whilst triggering contemplation​.”

Us runs until 24 April 2020. Visit everard-read-capetown.co.za to find out more and view the full collection, and email ctgallery@everard.co.za for a catalogue.

The post Everard Read’s Digital Exhibition In Aid Of Solidarity Fund appeared first on Visi.

Artist duo Caitlin Warther and Wendy Dixon of Warther Dixon collaborate on sculptures, films, photography and site-specific installations, such as The Dual Doors: a set of two light-based sculptures placed strategically in conversation.

The glowing LED portals stand at opposing ends of a historic tunnel in the V&A Waterfront, Cape Town. To the artists, a door represents a choice. “Choice, by nature, requires a person to select one option over another; front or back? Forwards or backwards? Pink or orange? A or B?”

Each door has two different colours (pink and orange) on the front and back facing in opposing directions. From one vantage point you see only the single colour; step through – or view from outside the opposite door – and you become aware of the other shade. According to the duo, the doors stand as an experience of “both and”. Both face forward and backward. Both are pink and orange. The light they are made of is both a wave and a particle.

Warther Dixon has a new body of work entitled The Space Between Us, on show at the Everard Read Gallery Cape Town from 14 October to 1 November 2019. The artists’ distinctive sculptures of mirrors and light offer viewers an opportunity to gaze within, to reflect on their perceptions of time, identity and spirit.

Located at 3 Portswood Road, the gallery forms part of the Portswood Ridge Precinct in the V&A Waterfront that will be activated over 30-31 October 2019 for Catalyst Africa. The two-day multidisciplinary event aims to create connection and enquiry around the intersection of technology, creativity and mindset. The programme includes over 50 talks, workshops and interactive sessions hosted by educational institutions, artists, business specialists, creatives and technical experts.

Attendees can design their own agenda and use the map of the precinct to engage with the layers of immersive creativity on offer, which include pop-up concerts, interactive virtual experiences in the galleries, and access to The Dual Doors installation in the V&A tunnel.

On Instagram you can stay up to date with news from Warther Dixon (@wartherdixon), Everard Read Cape Town (@everard_read_cape_town_) and Catalyst Africa (@catalyst_africa). 

The post The Dual Doors by Warther Dixon appeared first on Visi.

Cape Town-based artist Philip Barlow’s latest series of oil paintings, entitled Night, feature beautiful, abstract, out-of-focus cityscapes.

Known for his city and beach scenes, these dreamy night compositions don’t lack any of the signature lightness he is able to capture in his trademark style of blurred lines and orbs of colour. For Philip, who is based in Riebeek-Kasteel with his family, light is the ultimate subject “because it embodies the pinnacle of all reality”.

“Although I work within a long tradition of landscape painting, my depiction of the ‘seen’ landscape is simply a vehicle through which I navigate territory of another nature,” explains Philip of his work. “A landscape less ordinary; where the line between the physical and the spiritual realm has seemingly been removed. However, these scenarios are not intended to be of a surreal nature. Hopefully they will seem curiously familiar and convincingly real.”

leaving shibuya

“The figures in the landscape serve as carriers and reflectors of the light that falls upon them,” he continues. “Bathed in the luminosity, it is my hope that they would become more beautiful.”

This year Philip had an exhibition, entitled Still Motion II, at Everard Read London. Follow him on Instagram and check out more of his work on his site. 

The post Artist Philip Barlow’s New Night Painting Series appeared first on Visi.

Don’t miss contemporary mixed-media artist Galia Gluckman’s first show at CIRCA Gallery Cape Town – entitled ora (edge) –, running until 26 May 2018.

Galia‘s latest solo presentation features many large-scale works that have taken close to two years to finish. With cotton paper as her canvas for self-reflection, Galia uses an alchemy of pigment ink, acrylic paint and collage techniques to illustrate a feverish passion of presence, memory and self-awareness. The complex, intricate artistic detail and contrasting hues of bold colour create a sensation of abstraction and a unique creative outlook.

ora (edge) marks Gluckman’s second presentation with Everard Read Cape Town. Catch her debut solo at Everard Read/ CIRCA Johannesburg later this year.

For more information, visit Everard Read or call 021 418 4527.

The post Galia Gluckman at Circa Gallery Cape Town appeared first on Visi.

Artist Thania Petersen’s first solo exhibition, entitled Remnants, is currently showing at the Everard Read Gallery in Cape Town.

@thaniapetersen and @malibongwe outside Thania’s new solo exhibition at @everard_read_cape_town_ ??? #exhibition #gallery #art #artist #solo #flowers #capetown

A post shared by VISI Magazine (@visi_mag) on Feb 13, 2017 at 12:43am PST

Thania, who we previously featured here, is a multi-disciplinary artist who focuses on photography, installations and mixed media works. Her pieces explore the themes of identity.

Bahasagalaramashari, 2017

Bahasagalaramashari is Thania’s made-up name for the striking mixed media work above. The word represents a utopian place in which we could imagine living.

“Rendering place as event, it is a ritual – a thing we think we do because it has been done before and a thing we want to do because no one has ever done it,” explains Ruth Simbao, the National Research founder for SARChl Chair. “Bahasagalaramashari, as place and concept, represents a depth we seek as we skim the surface, and a surface we enjoy as we dread the depth. Sitting askew, the slanting line that concurrently leans ‘here’ and ‘there’ parallels the awkwardness Petersen feels as a Muslim besieged by secular and consumerist ideals.”

The exhibition runs at the Everard Read Gallery, 3 Portswood Road, Cape Town until 5 March 2017. Visit everard-read-capetown.co.za for more information.

The post Thania Petersen Solo Exhibition: Remnants appeared first on Visi.