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Inner Landscape

Bonolo Kavula, Gabrielle Kruger, Georgina Gratrix, Kate Gottgens,Marlene Steyn, Mary Sibande, Michaela Younge, Mongezi
Ncaphayi and Wallen Mapondera

09 June – 27 August 2022

Bloom Galerie is pleased to present Inner Landscape, a group exhibition showcasing works by Bonolo Kavula , Gabrielle Kruger, Georgina Gratrix, Kate Gottgens, Marlene Steyn, Mary Sibande, Michaela Younge, Mongezi Ncaphayi and Wallen Mappondera. The selection of works on display has been made in collaboration with SMAC Gallery to introduce a fine selection of established, as much as emerging artists of the South African scene. Focusing on the work of many of the women artists in this selection, the exhibition is primarily concerned with the question of the treatment of materials. Each of the artists presented here, from the figurative to the most abstract, has chosen a specific method of treatment and process that has allowed them to depict the distinctive intellectual landscapes and ecosystems of South Africa.

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The exhibition opens with three works by Mary Sibande (b. 1982). Born in Baberton, a small town in the northwest of South Africa, the artist has consistently challenged questions of status and identity in the midst of the evolving South African society. Her work stands today as a symbol of resistance against a globalized world of women’s circulation and return to domesticity. Considered one of the most important artists of her generation, Sibande was selected in 2011 to represent South Africa at the Venice Biennale with her show In DESIRE: Ideal Narratives in Contemporary South African Art. Upon entering the gallery space, the monumental sculpture A Reversed Retrogress, Scene 1 immerses the viewer in a reverie. Exhibited in 2017 at The British Museum in the exhibition South Africa: the art of a nation, this sculpture celebrates both the personal and intimate history of Sibande, as much as the universal beauty of the black woman’s body. Sophie – an imaginary character symbolizing strength and resistance – wears a headscarf and an apron representing servitude, which are set in tension with this voluptuous blue dress that refuses her maid status. Sophie faces her own contemporary double, a woman liberated and surrounded by strange creatures reminiscent of amorphous embryos about to be born. I’m a Lady, the second work presented by Mary Sibande is in direct parallel with this sculpture. With this title in the form of affirmation, it portrays Sophie as a noblewoman with calm, yet powerful features, mastering the elements with this hand placed on her dress imitating ocean waves. Contrasting these colors, The Red Shepherd presents an even more radical and contradictory image of Sophie. Both caught in this fire and air saturated with red, making explicit the systematic violence suffered by domestic women, Sophie appears as a shepherdess, borrowing from religious attributes.

Georgina Gratrix (b.1982). Gratix grew up in Durban, South Africa. She studied at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, and graduated in 2005. Gratix has been interested in the properties of paint to translate the energy of human faces and bodies. Her particular technique, marked by a rich impasto, brings a new texture to traditional portraiture. Gratrix’s painting embraces the energy of the Cubist painters, sometimes even recalling Otto Dix, while infusing each portrait with a psychedelic spirit. In her work Becky (Thinking about Garfield), Gratrix restructures the face of her subject, keeping only the most important features of her face. The thickness of the material and the choice of colors confront us with sometimes contradictory emotions, between contemplation and disturbance. It is this very contradiction that appears in a smaller format with Matthew with Bubbles.

Marlene Steyn (b.1989) born in Cape Town, South Africa, where she currently lives and works. She obtained her Master of Fine Art degree in 2014 from the Royal College of Art in London, UK. Steyn’s work can be seen as an oscillation between the body and what surrounds us. The faces and the floating bodies are nourished by their environment and reciprocally the environment by what the bodies generate. The Synchronized Eye Twitch Hers and Her Almost 30-Love Hers epitomize this generative art where the body becomes a portal leading to different planes and the title is a part of the work as introduced by René Magritte. Each part of the painting merges into another: an eye becomes a face; a mouth becomes an object carried in the hands.

Kate Gottgens (b.1965) bridge from vibrant figuration to a deeper level of abstraction. Gottgens currently lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. She was selected in 2019 for the prestigious Thames & Hudson publication, 100 Painters of Tomorrow. Inspired by David Hockney’s scenes and Frank Bowling’s aesthetic, the landscapes and scenes she depicts are interplaying with water. The Last Resort plunges us into an ideal and modern landscape, and yet how distressing. On the contrary, The Shrilling of Cicadas reflects the state of nature, undisturbed by humans and idealized. Gottgens manages to immerse us in an atmosphere: a watery air, the song of the cicadas, a motionless lake choked by the surrounding foliage.

Bonolo Kavula (b.1992) is an artist interested in the materiality of fabric and its physical presence. Kavula has been awarded the The Norval Sovereign African Art Prize 2022 for her insight on printmaking and textile. Since then, her meticulous artistic practice has focused on expressing the dynamics between the inner space (the artist’s mind) and the exterior space (the imprint that the textile takes on the gallery space) through minimalism.

Michaela Younge (b. 1993) Latest: Bitcoin Mine Discovered Under Local Church work offers a sarcastic, pop counterpoint. Michaela Younge graduated from the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2015 and has been showcased at the 2019 edition of 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London. She produces vivid paintings on highly textured materials. The scene on display in this exhibition unfolds like a fable through each piece of fabric. Mixing popular culture and childish imagination with the anxiety and drifts of consumer society, the artist manages to pursue the reflection of artists like Duane Hanson or Richard Hamilton.

Wallen Mapondera’s (b. 1985) the interest in the object and its detour is at the heart of his practice. Born in Zimbabwe, Mapondera lives and works in Grahamstown, South Africa. In 2005, Robert Mugabe, the former liberator of Zimbabwe, launched a vast operation called Murambatsvina, to clean up the slums. Mapondera’s art captured this experience of the disappearance of objects that were part of his daily life. His work Imwe Mbeu Yakadonhera Paruware uses one of the most common materials: egg cartons. The artist deconstructs both the material itself, but also the value that our society gives it. Mapondera’s work is currently exhibited at the 54th Venice Biennale among the artists selected to represent Zimbabwe.

Mongezi Nicophayi (b.1983) has established himself as an experimenter. Nicophayi was born in Benoni in Eastern Gauteng, South Africa, and currently lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. Ncaphayi was the recipient of the prestigious Absa L’Atelier Gerard Sekoto Award in 2013, earning him a three-month residency at the Cite Des Arts in Paris, France. Each of his works incorporates a deep reflection on the medium of paper and the technique of printmaking that he has been striving to develop for many years. In Astral Blues II, we find the same minimalist sensibility and the mix between abstraction and figuration that give life to the paper in a large format.

Gabrielle Kruger (b.1993) lives and works in Cape Town. She was awarded her Masters in Fine Arts from Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town in 2018. Her compelling three-dimensional wall works invites the viewer to observe her from all angles. Moving beyond the strict code of painting, Kruger has chosen to focus on new painting’s dynamics. Waving Crowd presented here testify to this off-frame characteristic of the technical artist. The painting seems to leave the canvas and to want to invade the space around it, like a process of perpetual mutation.

Selected works

Slide Name Project Selected Images - 1 of 7 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios Philip Guston
1975
Oil on canvas
122.5 x 178.4 cm
© Philip Guston
Slide Name Project Selected Images - 2 of 7 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios Philip Guston
1975
Oil on canvas
122.5 x 178.4 cm
© Philip Guston
Wame, 2022

Slide Wame, 2022 Selected works - 1 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios BONOLO KAVULA
Punched Shweshwe and Thread 129 x 35.5 cm
Slide Boipelo, 2021 Selected works - 2 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios BONOLO KAVULA
Punched Shweshwe and Thread 175 x 30.5 cm
Slide Mine, 2022 Selected works - 3 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios BONOLO KAVULA
Punched Shweshwe and Thread 65 x 30 cm
Slide Waving Crowd, 2020 Selected works - 4 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios GABRIELLE KRUGER
Acrylic on Board
120 x 90 cm
Slide Waving Crowd, 2020 Selected works - 5 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios GEORGINA GRATRIX
Oil on canvas
120 x 90 cm
Slide Matthew with Bubbles, 2018 Selected works - 6 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios GEORGINA GRATRIX
Oil on canvas
120 x 70 cm
Slide The Last Resort, 2018 Selected works - 7 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios KATE GOTTGENS
Oil on Canvas
130 x 220 cm
Slide A Kind of Eden, 2021 Selected works - 8 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios KATE GOTTGENS
Oil on Canvas
125 x 150 cm
Slide A Kind of Eden, 2021 Selected works - 9 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios KATE GOTTGENS
Oil on Canvas
150 x 125 cm
Slide Somnolent Hills, 2021 Selected works - 10 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios KATE GOTTGENS
Oil on Canvas
150 x 125 cm
Slide The Synchronized Eye Twitch Hers, 2018 Selected works - 11 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios MARLENE STEYN
Oil on Canvas
200 x 200 cm
Slide Her Almost 30-Love Hers, 2018 Selected works - 12 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios MARLENE STEYN
Oil on Canva
270 x 190 cm
Slide A Reversed Retrogress, Scene 1, 2013 Selected works - 13 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios MARY SIBANDE
Fibreglass, Resin, Fabric and Steel 180 x 120 x 120 cm (Per Figure)
Slide Casting a Spell, 2022 Selected works - 14 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios MARY SIBANDE
Oil on Bronze
74 cm H
50 cm W
ED 1/10 + 2AP
Slide The Red Shepherd, 2022 Selected works - 15 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios MARY SIBANDE
Inkjet on Hahnemühle Photo rag, Diasec Mount
200 x 140 cm
ED 1/10 + 3AP
Slide I’m a Lady, 2009 Selected works - 16 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios MARY SIBANDE
100% Cotton Fine Art Paper,
111.6 x 76 cm
124 x 87 cm (with frame)
ED 4/10 + 3AP
Slide LATEST: Bitcoin Mine Discovered Under Local Church, 2021 Selected works - 17 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios MICHAELA YOUNGE
Merino Wool on Felt
87.5 x 69 cm (with frame)
Slide Astral Blues II, 2017 Selected works - 18 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios MONGEZI NICOPHAYL
Indian Ink and Mixed Media on Paper
280 x 397 cm
Slide Imwe Mbeu Yakadonhera Paruware, 2021 Selected works - 19 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios WALLEN MAPONDERA
Egg Cartons, Paint, Glue
65 x 40 x 40 cm
Slide Untitled, 2021 Selected works - 20 of 20 arrow_forward_ios arrow_back_ios WALLEN MAPONDERA
Cardboard and toilet paper
90 x 134 cm

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