outoftheCUBE

Listings

'A sense of space/place’

At outoftheCUBE ‘current exhibitions’ www.outofthecube.co.za online from 10 October 2014 till 06 February 2015, then in our archive

This curated group of solo exhibitions features the works of seven artists who have used their own surroundings –urban or rural, intimate or vast - to examine their own life paths and philosophies

outoftheCUBE has created an online exhibition catalogue (link below) which holds the curators’ statement as well as information about each artist with many images of their work:

http://issuu.com/outofthecube/docs/outofthecube_a_sense_of_space_place

Featured artists and exhibition titles:

Janet Botes: Nuanced Landscape; Karin Daymond: Welcome Stranger; Johann du Plessis: A Room with a View; Kay Fourie: Karoo Fragments; Barry Rautenbach: unburdened-burden; Louise Ross: Memory Game; Lyn Smuts: reading landscape

10 October 2014 - 06 February 2015

'Alliances: two curated exhibitions'

30 April 2014 - 15 July 2014

'Legacy - The Caversham Community'

Caversham Textiles, ‘The HIV/AIDS Portfolio of Hope’: a print exhibition, ‘Hope for a new future’: a print exhibition, Kopanang Community Trust, and Vusi Zwane.

Often when confronted with visual art and fabric design living side by side one feels an underlying sense of unease – the ‘is it art, is it design/craft?’ question nudges its way in, along with a wondering as to why the artist has ‘allowed’ this. But there is no such ambiguity in the group of current exhibitions now showing on outoftheCUBE. They quite frankly are either art or design –and the design is inspired by the art.

The 2014 Design Indaba in Cape Town saw the launch of Caversham Textiles, whose cornerstone phrase ‘we take fine art into fabric’ informs the title of their outoftheCUBE exhibition. The team - Sally Scott and Christiane Voith - creates and hand-prints innovative designs inspired by the work of contemporary South African fine artists. Caversham Textiles is the most recent project to evolve out of the professional fine art printmaking studio The Caversham Press. What differentiates Caversham Textiles from other fabric design studios is their access to a wealth of visual imagery in the form of the original prints created throughout the years at the Press. After obtaining permission from the artists or their families, small sections of these are used to create extraordinary fabric designs.

Over the years, The Caversham Press has grown a community of people who have been closely associated with them, and the four other exhibitions here are linked one way or another to the Caversham Community.

‘Today it’s me, tomorrow …’ by Vusi Zwane, the artist-in-residence at Caversham, features old and new work, showing his early creative concerns around the merging of the spiritual and natural worlds alongside his newer awareness of the environmental threats that animals face.

‘Hope for a new future’ showcases an NAC sponsored project that consisted of two workshops held for children. Their aim was to create a lino block from which they produced an edition of fine art prints on paper, as well as a printed cushion cover – extending the fine art into fabric concept. The printing was assisted by Vusi who inspired them with his own work.

Gabi Nkosi, the Caversham outreach facilitator in the 2000s, organised and assisted in the project ‘The HIV/AIDS Portfolio of Hope’ in 2005 with students from the ELC Arts and Craft Centre Rourke’s Drift. This work focuses on the positive coping mechanisms that some folk use when living with HIV/AIDS. Another link here is that, prior to joining Caversham Textiles, Christiane Voith spent several years regenerating the Rourke’s Drift Centre.

The final exhibition, ‘A circle of affirmation’ features embroidered wall hangings by the craftswomen of the Kopanang Community Trust in Heidelberg, a community also impacted by HIV/AIDS. Their work has received international acknowledgment, and again we look at imagery translated into fabric work. Each woman translates the theme using her own mark – her own stitch work and colour choices. Their founder, Sister Sheila Flynn, is the Caversham community link as she was the facilitator for their early outreach programs in the 1999.

05 March 2014 - 20 April 2014

‘Gestation’

At outoftheCUBE, our primary question when engaging with an artist’s work is ‘why?’ Why did this body of work come into being? From what thought processes and technical explorations did it develop? 

As viewers, our first encounter with an artwork is the tangible - how an artwork was made, what it looks like, how it connects with us in our own space. Also important is each individual viewer’s experience – contemplating the questions and associations the work may provoke in our heads. But most fascinating are the intangibles – from where in the hidden corners of the artist’s mind did this artwork evolve and why?

The ‘why’ evolves during a period of creative gestation which may be lengthy, and is usually determined by the artist’s unconscious: his or her background, forgotten experiences, early influences, later creative influences, and concerns based on their life environment and remembered experiences. And although there may be conscious, apparently overt reasons for an artist to deal creatively with an issue – such as a social or political situation – what are the unconscious spurs that make this issue rather than another sufficiently significant to the artist that he or she will commit to the artmaking process?

In selecting the artists for this group of exhibitions, our focus was on some aspect of the concept of gestation. Although their works form convincingly resolved individual exhibitions, each is part of a larger thinking and working process one way or another. 

‘Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties’ (Erich Fromm). To make any creative work takes determined on-going mental and physical energy. This is attested to in our artists’ interviews where each took time to give considered and detailed answers (‘in conversation’), showing that, for all, a period of mental gestation is essential in their art making processes, as is time spent exploring techniques and methodology. These two aspects of art making are interlinked, and they continually influence each other, back and forth, while these artists attempt to navigate the unpredictable.

10 December 2013 - 20 February 2014