Featured Artists:
David Kuijers		DAVID KUIJERS The grey area between art and design is where I like to be, combining expression with playfulness. To this end the painting on glass technique is especially well suited, resulting in a graphic look but with the option of adding seriousness, to taste. Painting for me has to do with being energized through both the process and the re-interpretation of the subject – and when viewers identify with this experience, through the work, it is all the more satisfying. David Hockney said “I have always believed that art should be a deep pleasure. I think there is a contradiction in an art of total despair, because the very fact that the art is made seems to contradict despair.” Cape Town is unusual. It seems staged. Oceans and mountains conspire with the weather to create a dramatic and sometimes moody setting. It is a city with a view, an outdoors, a leisurely place, an evocative place. In short, a good place to paint. Through painting I can engage with this physical environment in ever new and fresh ways. For me, the city is an external departure point for a journey of unknown and tantalizing possibilities. At the end of every painting I am a little different. When I paint I leave for a place of exaggerated awareness, of relaxed concentration, a friendlier place. The visible results are not what Cape Town looks like, but an inkling of what it feels like. The images are for me, and hopefully for others, something positive and life affirming. Matisse, who lived through both wars, said that he aims for an art that is like a comforting influence, a mental balm, something like a good armchair in which one rests from physical fatigue. (more..)
Dominic Benhura		Dominic Benhura has emerged as a Zimbabwean sculptor who is known and respected outside his "backyard", and indeed outside his country. The "Benhura Phenomenon", the Awards, the Keys of the City, the accolades which are not usually given to sculptors have not yet been prone to complex analysis, and perhaps this is not necessary. What we seem to have, is an artist of singular maturity at a young age, an artist who represents in his sculpture many things with which people can identify, whatever their culture or race.  From Swing Me Mama to HIV Friend, Benhura captures moments in time which we have experienced ourselves or known others to experience. His sculptures may, perhaps, have a wider appeal than any other sculptures made in stone in Zimbabwe. There is a direct link between the sculptors and their sculpture- Benhura is a man of social consciousness, strong family values, hope and optimism about his country. He is a lover and conserver of nature. All these things about him are evident in his sculptures.      Dominic Benhura has achieved world standing as a sculptor. As the world shrinks, he grows in stature, becomes known in the further reaches of the earth. Globalization has had a direct effect upon his success; the expansion of the international market for the stone sculpture as the outcome of new technologies has been of enormous benefit. Constantly he is challenged by the demands made upon him by his fame, but he rigorously pursues the allowance of time to make original and compelling sculptures and to do daring things with his stones. Most recently, he has returned to the natural world, to what lives above and under the earth and the water, creatures whose habits are similar to those of men and women. Currently he is interested in the procreative activities of fish, and what goes on under the scaly surface. Benhura has virtually single-handed created a popular appeal for the stone sculpture of Zimbabwe. His work appeals as much to the person who knows nothing of sculpture as to the connoisseur. His whistle stop existence punctuated with long spells of making sculpture has taken him around the world, and he has a set of relationships and collaborating partnerships with art dealers the world over. In his own country of Zimbabwe, he has become somewhat of an icon, a role model for young people which reaches further than his fellow sculptors into the wider community of the countries youth. In 2002, he won the National Arts Council Award for the Best Three Dimensional Visual Artist in Zimbabwe and was nominated for the same Award in 2003. He has come from the kind of humble background that many Zimbabwean artists have come from. By dint of determination, rather than bravado he has moved from that background, to create for him, a solid and enduring family life.  Part of the appeal of his work is his ability to capture the restless perpetual motion of children, the manner in which they constantly run, leap, jump, scale fences and trees. Some see his sculptures and look back to the days when we ourselves were children, while others see their own children in his sculptures. Parents see his sculptures as models for good parenting. We derive much comfort from his sculptures regarding the blessings of family life and a safe upbringing for our children. We know these things can be if we work at them and hold them dear.     In Johannesburg 2003, Dominic Benhura met Nelson Mandela, a man whose pinnacle of human achievement has seldom been reached. Benhura himself sees sculpture as an aspect of human endeavor, a tough and disciplined profession, a profession demanding physical strength, moral strength and strength of mind. His work does not merely illustrate, it depicts the emotions and feelings of the subject which are often our emotions and feelings about the same thing.   One of Benhura's creations, Swing Me Mama, was installed in area commemorating Mandela. As a great humanitarian, Benhura felt at one with this meeting, and recognized in Mandela an energetic response to the meaning of the sculpture.     Benhura's work embodies the "civic conscience" of any given society; its intention is to move people, to make them aspire to a better life, to organize society in such a way that solid and enduring values are its firmament.  (more..)
Frank Taylor		Born in 1946, Frank Taylor studied Fine Art at Buckinghamshire, Cardiff and Brighton Colleges of Art (in the UK) and then pursued simultaneous careers as an illustrator and a lecturer for several years.  He held senior posts at Amersham and Salisbury Colleges of Art, but in 1989 he left in order to travel and paint.  Since then, he has painted full time, exhibiting widely both at private galleries and with most of the Royal Societies.  In the 1990s, his work reached a world-wide audience through a series of prints produced by the Art Group. ?When he begins a painting, Frank is unaware of its final form.  The less he knows where the process will lead, the more interesting it becomes.  He is continually experimenting with media, supports and methods of applying colour.  When he is surprised by the outcome, when he has produced something that is new for him ? that, to Frank, is a success.  Those who are familiar with Frank?s work will know that he is a frequent traveler and there is a clear parallel between his philosophy on painting and his continual exploration of the world ? the quest for new experiences, adventures, encounters and surprises. Taylor feels that his paintings should look natural, as if they should exist, and their execution should appear fluent.  Although in truth, this is rarely the case and each painting is the result of a great deal of struggle and effort, it should appear to have been produced with ease.  In fact, numerous attempts are abandoned, although some unsuccessful images appear as ghosts beneath a new painting which Frank has judged to ?work?.  Although purely representational drawings and paintings by other artists continue to interest him, the representational aspects of his own work have seemed increasingly less important to him.  In the past he has recorded people, places and things with painstaking accuracy but now he likes to invent as he draws.  He prefers the idea of the subjective rather than an objective realism ? this would seem more ?true to life?. ? ? Ian Courcoux and Frank Taylor Whatever the form his works take, Taylor has achieved an individual style that is warm and engaging without being superficial.  His highly developed use of colour and tone, coupled with admirable compositional balance, elevates his work to a level of considerable sophistication.  This, in many ways, is due to his nature, his aptitude to stand back and interpret an environment, as well as absorb and analyse the work of major twentieth century artists such as Braque, Klee and Miro. For more than 20 years, Frank?s work has been exhibited at numerous galleries in the UK and his prints have been distributed world wide.  He continues to exhibit in the UK and lives with his wife and son in Surrey. About Monemvasia: Inspired by Greek subjects, Monemvasia conveys the robust monumentality of this historical landmark, a massive rock, the Gibraltar of Greece, connected to the east coast of the Peloponnese by a causeway.  Torn from the mainland by a devastating earthquake in 375 AD, in the 6th century, it gave the mainland inhabitants a place of refuge from marauding barbarians.  In medieval times it became the commercial centre of Byzantine Morea, and was a substantial city of which just a fraction remains.  This work was exhibited at Taylor?s exhibition in Gloustershire, Rum and Raki, paintings from Cuba and Greece. (more..)
Robert Slingsby		Robert Slingsby Art South Africa - Review by Hazel Friedman for Winter 2006 issue In his book on Namaqualand, photographer Freeman Patterson describes this contrasting landscape as a “garden of the gods”. It is not the softer side of the Northern Cape that provides the most vivid illustration of its otherworldly propertie s. It is the desolate, jagged lunar-like contours of the Richtersveldt. This is Robert Slingsby’s spiritual and creative locus. Inspired by the San petroglyphs and the Nama community inhabiting this rocky hinterland, for over 30 years he has obsessively recorded its topographical markings, their interconnection with ancient societies and their role as a means of entering parallel universes. Access to these alternate realities is gained through rituals that allow us, if only brie fly, to see beyond the limits of our own perceptions. The most recent pit stop of Slingsby’s ongoing odyssey comprise two related bodies of work. The first was exhibited in the Bahamas and also at the Bell-Roberts . The second, which includes remnants of the first, was recently displayed at London ’s Square One Gallery. In a sense the Bell-Roberts show represents a return from self- exile by a widely acclaimed artist whose work, in the last decade, has fallen out of kilter with more fashionable trends in contemporary art. While many of his post-94 peers have renegotiated the politics of representation through new forms of cultural currency, Slingsby has remained focused, intuitively, on the “shamanistic” aspects of art, a paradigm that might seem anachronistic – quixotic even – to a discourse focused predominantly on deconstructing issues of this world, particularly ethnicity, race and gende r. Yet he has quietly forged on and his work has been championed overseas, in terms of its ability to transcend the constraints of geography and history. Entitled Power House, his ‘return’ exhibition revolves around the inexorable changes occurring in a landscape seemingly frozen in the romantic, ethnocentric imagination. Slingsby’s iconography is the idiosyncratic dwellings inhabited by the Nama, which are now being replaced – courtesy of increasing urbanisation and political wrangling – by faceless cement houses. Through bronze sculptures and monochromatic drawings he attempts to evoke the residue of a mystically charged landscape in which the soon-to-be demolished human structures feed off and encapsulate the potency of the environme nt. But while the sense of oneness is successfully evoked through the exquisitely executed bronze s, the monochromatic drawings resemble fortresses erected in a landscape bereft of people, blocking out, instead of embracing the ancient environme nt. Inadvertently they become a form of armoury for the artist himself. But in his Square On e body of works, Slingsby has returned to the exuberant colours anthropomorphic forms and multi-layered motifs of his earlier output. Consisting largely of mixed media panels, including corroded community artifacts and other fragile material traces, they suggest a process of incorporation and integration, rather than simply inscription. These works evoke an empathy with place that transcends ethnicity and changing techno- economic contexts. As such, they constitute the marking and re -making of individual and collective histories as part of a never- ending quest to locate the outer limits of experience , and to cross them. Hazel Friedman Art South Africa Winter 2006 Exhibitions Include: 2006 Square One Gallery, London (April) Square One Gallery, London (June) Cannazaro House, Wimbledon (July) Cannazaro House, Wimbledob artist in residence (November) Art International, Nassau, Bahamas (November) 2005 Selected as a finalist in Brett Kebble Art Competition Exhibition that was cancelled as a result of his untimely death. Art international group show Nassau, Bahamas Bell-Roberts Contemporary Art Gallery – Cape Town `Art Salon’ Bay Hotel, Cape Town Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 2004 Finalist in Brett Kebble Art Competition Exhibition `Art Salon’ Bay Hotel, Cape Town Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 2003 Researching Stones of Africa Exhibiting in Korea `Art Salon’ Bay Hotel, Cape Town Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 2002 `Art Salon’ Bay Hotel, Cape Town Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 2001 Air Gallery, London Richard Demarco - On the Road to Meikle Seggie, as part of the Venice Bienale Research in Egypt `Art Salon’ Bay Hotel, Cape Town Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 2000 Richard Demarco - On the Road to Meikle Seggie Edinburgh City Art Gallery, Edinburgh HANOVER EXPO 2000: GERMANY Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston University, U. K. Slingsby Painting in Collaboration with YPO UNIVERSITY 2000 raises $250 000.00 `Art Salon’ Bay Hotel, Cape Town Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1999 Osborne Gallery, London Bourne Fine Art, Edinburgh Edinburgh Festival – First South African artist in twenty-seven years to be invited. Invited to Malta Research in Egypt & Malta `Art Salon’ Bay Hotel, Cape Town Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1998 Hout Bay Gallery, Cape Town Klein Karroo Festival, Oudtshoorn Lisbon Expo, Portugal Art Beyond Borders, Augsberg, Germany CNN Arts Club Interview EKHAYA, Travelling Exhibition to Tsoga-Langa, Uluntu, Guguletu. Sun Gallery, Cape Town Primart, Cape Town Gallery 88, Sasolburg IKHAYE. African Studies, University of Cape Town Bang the Gallery, Cape Town Hout Bay Gallery, Cape Town IDASA Gallery, Cape Town Worcester Association of Arts, Worcester `Art Salon’ Bay Hotel, Cape Town Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1997 Groot Constantia Art Gallery, Cape Town Kunskamer, Cape Town Red Code, Perth, Australia Art Salon, Bay Hotel, Camps Bay Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1996 Association of Arts, Cape Town Robben Island Memorial Sculpture The Arts Association of Belville Primart, Cape Town Gallery 68, Cape Town Primart, Cape Town Gallery Atlantic, Cape Town Code Red, Perth, Australia `Art Salon' Bay Hotel, Cape Town Constantia Village Gallery, CapeTown Chelsea Gallery Kronendal Restaurant, Hout Bay Volkskas Atelier Finalist, SAAA Art Salon, Bay Hotel, Camps Bay Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1995 Primart, Cape Town BMW Pavilion, Cape Town Chelsea Gallery, Cape Town Sisonke Association of Arts, Mitchells Plain Bellville Association of Arts `Art Salon’ Bay Hotel, Cape Town Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1994 SA Cultural History Museum, Cape Town Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg Quid Novi Gallery, Germany Seeff Trust Gallery, Cape Town V & A Waterfront, Cape Town `Art Salon’ Bay Hotel, Cape Town Sembach Gallery, Cape Town World Convention Centre, Singapore World Trade Centre, Hong Kong Very Special Arts Gallery, Washington D.C. Primart, Cape Town `Art Salon’ Bay Hotel, Cape Town Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1993 University of Stellenbosch Gallery, Stellenbosch Chelsea Gallery, Cape Town Art Scene, Cape Town Skylight Gallery, Cape Town Art Salon, Cape Town Primart, Cape Town Constantia Village Gallery, Cape Town Primart, Cape Town ‘Cape Town Arts Festival’ V & A Waterfront, Cape Town Made in Wood: Works from the Western Cape, SANG Primart, Cape Town South African Association of Arts, Pretoria University of Stellenbosch Gallery, Stellenbosch De Oude Drostdy Museum, Tulbagh Primart, Cape Town Visual Arts Foundation, Johannesburg Chelsea Gallery, Cape Town Bell ‘Art, Cape Town Primart, Cape Town `Art Salon’ Bay Hotel, Cape Town Seeff Trust Gallery, Cape Town South African Association of the Arts, Pretoria University of Stellenbosch Gallery, Stellenbosch De Oude Drostdy Museum, Tulbagh Visual Arts Foundation, Johannesburg Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1992 Primart, Cape Town Chelsea Gallery, Cape Town Feathers Gallery, Cape Town `Art Salon’ Bay Hotel, Cape Town Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1991 Chelsea Gallery, Cape Town Primart, Cape Town Gallery International, Cape Town SANLAM Collection, Baxter Gallery, Cape Town South African Association of Arts Baxter Gallery, Cape Town Chelsea Gallery, Cape Town Labia Gallery, Cape Town Art Scene, Cape Town William Humphries Art Museum, Kimberly `20 Years of S.A. Art’ Kunskamer, Cape Town `Art Salon’ Bay Hotel, Cape Town Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1990 Gallery International, Cape Town Gallery 709, Cape Town Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1989 Chelsea Gallery, Cape Town Johannes Stegman Art Gallery, Bloemfontein Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg Natalie Knight Gallery, Johannesburg Jane se Kunshuis, Paarl Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1988 “The Sasol Art Collection”, Rand Afrikans University RAU Durbanville Cultural Museum University of Stellenbosch Gallery, Stellenbosch Chelsea Gallery, Cape Town Art Scene, Cape Town Skylight Gallery, Cape Town “Art Salon” Cape Town Primart Gallery, Cape Town Primart Gallery, Cape Town Constantia Village Gallery, Cape Town Chelsea Gallery, Cape Town Volkskas Atelier Finalist, SAAA Kronendal Restaurant, Cape Town Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1987 Cape Town Festival Chelsea Gallery, Cape Town Volkskas Atelier Finalist, SAAA Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1986 Volkskas Atelier Finalist, SAAA Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1985 “Tributaries - a View of Contemporary SA Art ” for BMW RSA, Touring Germany Cape Town Triennial Competition Finalist, SANG Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1984 “Masterworks on Paper” SANG, Cape Town Gallery 21, Johannesburg Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1983 Gowlett Gallery, Cape Town SA Contemporary Realism, Pretoria Art Museum South African Association of Arts Gowlett Gallery, Cape Town Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1982 Gowlett Gallery, Cape Town Goodman Gallery, Cape Town Gowlett Gallery, Cape Town Cape Town Triennial South African Association of Arts Atlantic Art Gallery, Cape Town 1981 “Toys” The Hague, Holland La Tertulia, Amsterdam, Holland 1980 Sheraton Hotel, Amsterdam, Holland 1979 Posthoorn, Den Haag, Holland 1978 Gallery Galjoen, S’Hertogenboch, Holland Gallery ’77, Ijsselstein, Holland Nederlandse Fijnschilders, t’Kunsthuis, V H Ooste, Holland Gallery Ploemp, Delft, Holland 1976 Gallery International, Cape Town 1975 Award in New Signature competition 1972 First exhibition in Diocesion College - Bishops Art Loft COLLECTIONS INCLUDE ABSAPietersburg Art MuseumArtoteek, Dutch Municipal CollectionWitwatersrand University CollectionWilliam Humphries MuseumSASOL Public CollectionSouth African Reserve BankInvestec BankTelkomCape of Good Hope Bank Sanlam Public CollectionDepartment of Foreign AffairsSouth African Embassy, BrusselsBunders Bank, GermanyCoronationPepsicaRand Merchant BankSANTAMSEEFF HoldingsDeutsche Bank, Johannesburg (birthdate and memo here) (more..)
Artists:
Artist name not available Carlie Edward Celestino Mukavhi Colleen Madamombe Emilija Pasagic Eric Waugh Fanizani Akuda Gail Catlin Garrison Machinjilli Glenn Cox Gregory Mutasa Guy Mourand Henry Munyaradzi Innocent Mangena Issa Shojaei John Maltby Karen Hoepting Lovemore Bonjisi Mark Demsteader Nesbert Mukomberanwa Pietro Adamo Rez Raven Richard Rosani Square Pawandiwa Stanford Derere Sylvester Mubayi Tania Babb Tom Coffee Tonderai Marezva Tonderai Mashaya Tutani Mugavazi Witness Bonjisi