Vanitas (2020) – hand-pulled screen print by Adele van Heerden. See more of Adele’s work here, and follow her on Instagram.

• 7-colour screen print on 100% archival paper (BFK Rives 250gsm)
• Paper size: 560x760mm
• Limited edition of 50
• Numbered and signed by the artist
• Hand-printed in South Africa
• Please note all prints are sold unframed

With qualifications in fine art, history and politics, and curatorship, artist Adele van Heerden (b. 1989) is preoccupied with the complex: the multifaceted range of human truths, viewpoints and experiences – what the artist describes as “the beauties of the multifarious”. Exploring themes of cultural memory, the natural world and the weight of human history, she plays with scale, perspective and juxtaposition to interrogate the “weight” and meaning of her subjects and invite ambiguity and understated humour. As such, edifices dissolve and statues shrink; the concrete becomes spectral, the botanical monumental. Her mediums of ink and gouache on (often layered) drafting paper, acetate and film, are harnessed in an approach she describes as “painterly drawing” and result in intricate, detailed works of conceptual and aesthetic depth.

Van Heerden has exhibited extensively across South Africa as well as in Germany and the UK. She recently completed a three-month residency at the Cite Internationale Des Arts in Paris, France. In parallel with her art career, she continues to practice as a curator.