Katherine Spindler | Barnard

The unlikely marriage of movement and stillness, of tumult and quietude, is a defining characteristic of Katherine Spindler’s oeuvre, eliciting a similar mix of emotion in the viewer. In examining Spindler’s paintings one has the sense that things are moving just beneath and beyond the surface, too vast to fully perceive or understand. With a quiet immensity and arresting gravitas, Spindler’s work sees light and shadow flicker and evade, swirl in eddies, swell and recede. The surface of the canvas, like water, is unstable, constantly shifting and undulating while main-taining a meditative stillness that both captivates and mystifies. Often blurring, veiling, or erasing the images she works with, Spindler’s intention is to evoke rather than explicate, to suggest more than to prescribe.
Solo Exhibitions
Joburg Art Fair 2018
Katherine Spindler completed both her BAFA in 2004 and MFA in 2011 with distinction at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town where she subsequently lectured part time 2009-2017. She continues to teach in the art department of Bishops Diocesan College in Cape Town, a post she has held since 2010.

Her distinguished Masters exhibition, ‘At Sea’, drew upon her experience volunteering aboard a hospital ship off the coast of Liberia, and went on to show at Commune.1 in Cape Town. She joined Barnard in 2014 and has since presented four solo exhibitions with the gallery including a solo project at the FNB Joburg Art Fair in 2018. Barnard has presented the artist’s work annually at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair since 2015 as well as at ‘AKAA – Also Known As Africa’ in Paris 2017-2018.
Available Artworks
- Katherine Spindler, Huddled Masses, 2017
Press
- Press
  A Slow Exposure
  September 11, 2019 Seated in Katherine Spindler’s studio, listening to her as she lays out works in oil, water soluble graphite, and charcoal, one word emerged like a reckoning – sensibility. A favourite...
- Press
  The importance of having two ears
  September 1, 2018
Publication: To Hold Time