Paint Matters: Curated Group Exhibition

Barnard Gallery is pleased to present PAINT MATTERS, an exhibition of selected works highlighting recent developments in painting by the following emerging and established South African artists.

 

Asha Zero is known for a collagist approach to painting and his work is a blend of Pop art parody, Dada conceptualism, and pictorial illusionism. Zero effectively renders the heterogeneity of post-industrial urban life, fettered by the omnipresence of mass media, which Zero readily borrows from to construct detailed trompe l'oeil compositions. Zero’s stance suggests that ideologies are rendering agents for consumer society; presenting the bricolage as it stands, inspired by newspaper headlines, street art, posters, album covers, fashion spreads, and print ads.

 

Alexia Vogel graduated from Michaelis School of Fine Art (with distinction) majoring in painting and was subsequently awarded a Simon Gerson Prize. Her work is represented in the University of Cape Town (UCT) Collection.

 

Jaco van Schalkwyk grew up in the faith home, Jatniël: the headquarters of the Latter Rain Mission International. This background informs his world-view and continues to influence his work. He holds a BA degree in Historical studies from the University of Pretoria and his knowledge and appreciation of art history provides ongoing content for his creative dialogue with past and contemporary art forms.

Van Schalkwyk was a Finalist in the 2011 Absa L'Atelier Award and in 2013 won a Merit Award in this prestigious national competition. Residency awards include the New York Art Students League (2008) and Kunst: Raum, Sylt Quelle, Germany (forthcoming). His work is represented in the collections of the South African Reserve Bank, Absa Bank and Ellerman House.

 

Katherine Bull is currently a practicing artist, part-time lecturer in Visual Art at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town and a creative coach.

In 1998 she was awarded a Master of Fine Art degree from the University of Cape Town with distinction. In her master’s installation and thesis titled Positioning the Cape: A Spatial Engraving of a Shifting Frontier (1996-8) Bull researched and critically explored colonial printed representations of the Cape history and their relationship to systems of archiving.

 

Alexandra Karakashianwas born in Johannesburg 1988. She obtained her BA(FA) from the Michaelis School of Fine Art. During 2011, she received the Judy Steinberg Painting Prize as well as the Simon Gerson Prize. Alexandra’s work forms part of the permanent UCT Collection.

 

Jan Henri Booyens was born in Johannesburg in 1980 and now lives and works between Cape Town and Pretoria. He studied at the Durban Institute of Technology and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, and has taught in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Stellenboosch. Booyens was one-third of the infamous artist collective Avant Car Guard and his work is part of numerous collections, including the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris.

 

Katherine Spindler completed her BA(FA) (2004) and MFA (2011) with distinction at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town where she currently lectures in drawing and printmaking. She is also teaches in the art department at Bishops Diocesan College.

She is the recipient of a number of awards including the Katrine Harries Memorial Bursary; a MacIver Scholarship and the Jules Kramer Fine Art Travel Scholarship.

 

Tracy Payne is the recipient of the MacIver Scholarship (1985-1986), she graduated from Michaelis School of Fine Art and has chartered a course in applied and fine arts ever since. Her work has been presented at both the Joburg and Cape Town Art Fairs and is included in various corporate collections

 

Khayalethu Witbooi was born in Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Witbooi’s works borrow from diverse sources ranging from Andy Warhol to Asha Zero. His paintings, which for the most part comprise skillfully stencilled panels of images running to the canvas edge belie a painstaking process involving taping, sketching, cutting, texturing, sanding and brush treatment. These animated cult-trash mashups empoly Pop Art and propaganda posters with a street art irreverence cleverly critiqing and commenting on the contemporary socio-political South African landscape.

 

Ndikhumbule Ngqinambi studied at Community Arts Project 2000 -2001. He has since participated in various exhibitions both locally and abroad and is the recipient of a number of international residency fellowship awards. In 2012 he was selected to represent South Africa at the Dakar Biennale where he was the winner of the Foundation Blachere Award. At the recommendation of former Turner Prize nominee, Tacita Dean, Ngqinambi was subsequently awarded a residency fellowship at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Germany.

 

Nike Romano completed her PG Dip in Fine Arts at Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2009 and her Masters in Fine Art in May 2013. Romano is currently employed as a lecturer in History of Art and Design at Cape Peninsula University of Technology.

 

Ryan Hewett is a self-taught painter whose debut solo exhibition at Barnard Gallery in March 2013 sold out within days of it opening to the public and the demand for his portraits continues to grow. Hewett subsequently held successful solo shows in New York and California and participated in group exhibitions in London, Berlin and San Fransisco. His paintings have also been presented at various art fairs including Joburg Art Fair; Cape Town Art Fair; Fountain Art Fair, Chicago and SCOPE Miami. Hewett’s next solo exhibition at Barnard Gallery will take place in September 2014 and will followed by his debut London solo at Rooke and Raven Gallery.

 

Sarah Biggs graduated in 2013 from the Michael School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, with a Distinction in Discourse of Art and Studiowork. She was awarded the Matthew Somers Memorial Prize in 2011 and the Judy Steinberg Award in 2013, as well as a Humanities Faculty Scholarship 2010-2013.

 

Virginia MacKenny is a practicing artist and an Associate Professor in Painting at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town. She has received a number of awards including the Volkskas Atelier Award (1991) and the Ampersand Fellowship in New York (2004). She is an independent critic and curator and often selects for national art competitions. Interested in painting, gender and deep ecology she is recipient of a GIPCA Award for 2011 for research on environmentally concerned art practice in a pan-African context. MacKenny is represented in numerous public collections in South Africa including the South African National Gallery and her work can be found in the corporate collections of Anglo-American, SASOL and SANLAM.