An international artist residency at Greatmore Studios in Capetown between September and the end of November 2010.It’s my first residency but not my first visit to Capetown: I lived there as a teenager during the apartheid years before returning to study art in London in 1974.Now that I’ve refreshed my practice with a BA in fine Art it’s time to bring my research up to date.
Back at home in west Wales since 21st December, into the deep freeze(lit and fig) and only really thawed through to the soul fairly recently. It was hard coming down from the elevated planes of creative activity and stimulating company in Cape Town and even harder integrating what I’ve brought home to work on and from: a mix of ready mades and my own internal images.
As I was about to leave Capetown I met up with an old colleague from activist days back in the mid-70s-she became a documentary film maker during her exile in France but has since returned home to Sa and co-directs a gallery in the Cape. (www.art-lines.co.za) To my absolute delight, at the 11th hour, when I’d abandoned hopes of connecting witha gallery, Nicki asked to keep several pieces, unframed even as they were.
A month since the last post and work is underway for the visiting artists’ show toward the end of November. I spent quite a long time collecting images from newspapers and realised gradually that i kept coming back to the property ads in all their glory. The range of prices and locations is huge and the adverts clearly indicate who they expect to sell the top end to, which brings its own visual language into play.
I am aware of my own nostalgia for houses we used to visit as children; my grandmother’s friends in their tree-shaded Cape colonial homes with views of the mountains and the delights of swimming pools.The ads invoke landscape imagery found in romantic and Impressionist era work, an idyllic life free of contemporary worries about security and crime….
Been attending the Pan African Space Station live concerts as the festival comes to its climax this week. Brice Wassy Trio -a tremendous percussionist and allround performer, delightful to watch and listen to such complex rhythms. If that wasn’t enough, the second half was a total blast from the Imperial Tiger Orchestra: a Swiss based Ethiopian inspired ensemble of six instrumentalists ranging from the monumental John Menoud on Baritone Sax to the mesemerising happy dancing percussionist Luc Detraz. the Ethiopians sitting alongside me were thrilled , driven to dancing in the pews of the Slave Church (a memorably apt venue) and eventually out onto the floor, wherupon I seized the day and followed to clap and jig about too-fantastic!Or should I say enthralling….
Getting some ideas for small projects to carry out here;whether they’ll be feasible remains to be seen but I have made enquiries about decorating the old school quadrange across the street. i saw it when wew ent over to colect the chairs for last week’s presentation and realised it’s a delightfullly small but quite well formed quad with arches and columns. it’s inside a defunct school now used by two community colleges. I’m told it’s owned by the police so might be tricky to negotiate but I will try as it would be good to improve its appearance for the users and the locals and it’s so close to Greatmore so it could be part of my show of work.
We all went to the new exhibition ‘situation’ at the Association of Visual Arts last night : installations of lights mounted on various supports. The dominant piece, ‘untitles(distance to the ground)’ uses three wooden ladders, some very tall, with antique lamp holders fitted with low energy bulbs in them shining on each other-rather Kafka-like,This seems appropriate enough for an artist who has also just contributed to the lighting design of a theatre piece I’m seeing tonight at the City Hall, a roving dance drama directed by Jay Pather,based on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
The AVA artist is Vaughn Sadie who has just completed a residency at the Bag Factory in Johannesburg, Greatmore’s sister workshop in South Africa.
Finally sttling into the visiting artists’ house in the quiet suburb of Observatory, favoured by packbackers and well served by pubs, bars and eateries. i have a presentation to make on Thursday at Greatmore’s Open Studio event at which the resident artiss and committe members will be present so i will meet them all. I have met a few already-Velile Soha the printmaker and Igshaan Adams, whose work with found images and used household furnishing materials looked really interesting. Otherwise there’s plenty to see gallery wise-the National has ahuge review of 100 years of SA art throughout th entire building, and in two parts, so it will need a few visits but promises to an invaluable overview of contemporary discourses.
