Exhibitions

This the year of the Secretary Bird.

An initiative of awareness set up by Bird Life South Africa. The Warren Cary Wildlife Gallery in Hoedspruit hosted an exhibition with several artists showing artworks in different mediums.

I displayed several of my Bronze sculptures. Such as my half life-sized Secretary Bird - titled Hunter.

Participating artists are Warren Cary, Bernie Van der Vyver, Nicolle Moore, Sophie Niemann, and many others.

For more information contact Warren +27 76 811 5654 warren@detailsofafrica.com

This exhibition of my larger bronze sculptures took place fom 28th October until Sunday 30th October as par t of the Southern Drakensberg Open Gardens Festival.

My work spread out amongst the garden of the Underberg Studio. Bronze sculpture and gardens definitely go together and the sculpture looked fantastic in the Brennon's Garden.

Apart from the glorious garden there was also a variety of original and carefully crafted ceramic works by Catherine Brennon and other ceramicists. Laurence Brennon also exhibits his well known and powerful photographs.

This was a great opportunity and experience to have had a chance to exhibit at the FNB Joburg Art Fair in Johannesburg, South Africa.

This grand exhibition took place at The Sandton Convention centre, 23 - 25 September 2011.

I exhibited with other DTI funded artists.

Cherie de Villiers celebrates 20 years of selling art and her new move to Hyde Park Corner Mall in Johannesburg.

The exhibition was held in the Centre court of the mall with a collection of high quality paintings and bronzes from Cherie's artists.

Event Date: 9 May - 19 May 2013.

One of the main reasons why I chose to study and pursue a career making sculpture was because I was inspired by outdoor sculptures; seeing them in garden settings, public parks and city squares around the world. Sculpture in a garden setting just feel right - it is where they belong, with the garden accentuating the grandeur of the sculpture and the sculpture giving a context to the garden.

In November 2013 I exhibited my sculptures in Kokstad, East Griqualand in the garden of Merida Roets as part of the areas annual garden show.

View some of my sculptures in this wonderful garden and its grand view; a perfect setting for the sculptures.

Event Date: 26 May – 14 June 2014
Curated by: Grace Kotze

Unthinkingly artists are hemmed in by the way we see, feel and create. The external voices of cultural norms, the need to make money, ethical judgments, relationships, and academic judgment etc. so often sneak into the creative realm. Thus clipping one’s authentic exploratory intentions and obscuring ones vision. Being an artist is one of the most romanticised professions where the creative process is viewed as a relaxed and easy flowing process.

The intensity involved in the learning, refining and developing of one’s craft is vastly taxing and time consuming especially with the battle against external voices and how to placate them in ones journey as an artist.

The shows intentions are to prompt artists to take a deep breath, reassess what the process of making art means to their true intentions, and then work from that place. Exhale examines this through printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, and painting.

The invited artists are Suraya Tewary, Deidre Maree, Louise Jennings, Jane Oliver, Jeannie Kinsler, Vulindlela Nyoni,Marlene de Beer, Marlene Wasserman, Chris de Beer, Kristin Hua Yang, Sarah Lovejoy, Elizabeth Balcomb , Peter Rippon, Grace Kotze, Sarah Richards, Kim Goodwin and Jackie Freer.

To “Exhale” means very different things to each individual and vary during the individuals creative journey. For some the journey may lead to a break from the academia and time to play or reinvent a more commercial style. Other artists found themselves exploring new materials or subjects while others worked in partnership with others or academic processes.

While attempting to ‘exhale’, many of the artists find the process of connecting to a freedom and shift in perceptions anything but exhaling but rather another type of toiling. One that produced many struggles in order to inhabit a space, were it is easy to breathe personal concerns. “Exhale” is a show about letting go of an area that became stifling that so often happens when one is faced with the multifaceted world of the fine artists.

I have been concerned about the piles of plastic I use each day in my kitchen. So I thought I would make sculpture with it as well as using other recycled commercially produced plastic (used to make benches etc). It has not been easy. Plastic is a moody material and unpredictable; each type of plastic reacting differently to heat.

In creating these works I realised that the only way to rid our planet of plastic is not to use it or even better not to create it in the first place. It is very toxic; plumes of smoke drifted into the atmosphere as I worked, and the dust from the grindings go everywhere. In essence my 'recycling' was not helping the issue.

I have also used aluminium and concrete in these works. Both are mined and both are used excessively in our modern culture. The aluminium flowers were cast from cheap plastic flowers. The dilemma I have is that I use plastic every day and cast my sculptures into materials that are mined and either pollute or damage this earth. What can I do about this?

As a human I am in essence destructive, and do things for my own gain. But how do I do what I love to do and not be a drain on the planet? I am in conflict with myself between my human cultural norms and amazing creations and inventions, and the evidence that indicate a gradual demise of the planet as we know it.

So although these sculptures were a fun experiment, creating them brought home the realisation that there may well be nothing left of natural value for the children of the future, just plastic and other 'things', all created from products extracted from the earth, destroying what is naturally beautiful and amazingly created.

This was a joint exhibition of bronze sculptors who cast their bronzes at the Goodwin foundry in KZN Midlands. This exhibition took place 24 - 27 September 2009.

We had something like 35 sculptures on show. All cast at the Goodwin foundry and it looked very impressive. We had a slide show showing the casting process and we displayed each of the 7 artists separately. There was a wonderful variety of work and visitors were very impressed.

Anna- Marie of the De Kraal Gallery was very helpful and a great support to us as we set up and organised ourselves from our venue behind her gallery.

An exhibition of paintings by Sarah Richards.

This body of work shows the complex layering of my experience with the creative process. I started this journey of the Masters because I was experiencing ‘artist’s block’. Levels of fear, and apprehension essentially blocked my creative process.

These paintings show this struggle; between that which flows and that which hinders.

The exhibition was shown at Artspace Durban in South Africa from the 18th February to 8 March 2008 .These paintings form the practical component of a Masters qualification at the Durban University of Technology.

Below are a selection of paintings from the exhibition.

Download (PDF) Masters Thesis titled: Artist's Block: The Creation of a workshop to re-engage visual artists with their creative process by using the natural environment as a facilitator.

Event Date: 20 - 22 May 2011
Location: Hilton Quarry Centre, Hilton, in the KZN Midlands.

An Exhibition of Paintings and Sculptures by Marion Lowe, Jocelyn Boyley and Sarah Richards.

Mary Carlisle opened the exhibition with a heart-felt tribute to us artists. A percentage of the proceeds from the sale of the paintings and sculptures were donated to Rotary Club of Pietermaritzburg.

Exhibition of Bronze Sculptures and Paintings

This exhibition was held at Artspace Durban. Opened on Monday 29th August 2011, by Grace Kotze. The exhibition closed on Saturday 10 September.

Through the creation of these artworks I continue my search for truth, questioning the authenticity of my cultural and societal perceptions, so often manipulated and controlled by unseen human influences and my own fears. I ask what of these are real, what are my own and what is culturally based?

I use the male figure as the vehicle into which this search happens, representative of the masculine aspect of myself: the achiever, the organiser and physically strong. The feminine aspect is represented in the inner landscape of the sculpture: flowing, chaotic and creative. Because of the nature of bronze I am able to partially create the figure, revealing the inner landscape of the bronze surface usually hidden from the viewer.

This inside space becomes a creative playground, were found objects, drawings and relief are used to touch on the emotional response to this search for truth.

Each art work deepens this search, revealing hidden ideas, and opening myself to more probing questions. I am further down the line, yet I still have further to go.

The sculptures have been temporarily placed at Oliewenhuis Art Museum in Bloemfontein. Open to the public, so if you are in the area pop in to have a look.

The permanent site will be in Johannesburg once this has been secured and all the 400 proposed figures completed.