Women’s work, worldwide.
As August is Women’s Month in South Africa, we’d like to showcase some of our latest releases by women artists. This didn’t require any particular effort; coincidentally, collaborations with women have dominated the studio recently, albeit in a virtual sense.
While we miss the in-person, in-studio conversations, lockdown necessitated new approaches towards the collaborative process that we might not otherwise have explored. With social distancing the norm, distance has become paradoxically irrelevant. With proximity no longer an option, it is also no longer a factor. We are now obliged – and empowered – to collaborate over phone lines, internet cables and cellular data. And this month, we’ve spanned distances ranging from Cape Town to 1300 km (Durban) and 10 000 km (Australia) to bring you new work by Elsabe Milandri, Kylie Wentzel and Marna Hattingh respectively.
50ty/50ty featured release | Leisure woman by Kylie Wentzel
Kylie Wentzel (b. 1993) continually explores new mediums as a means of resisting the constrictions of formal art training, with her distinctive, bold graphic style largely informed by her love of linocut – both the medium itself and its idiosyncrasies within the South African art historical context. Her work bears what the artist calls “remnants” of this influence, which she explains are evident in the “distinctive borders and using them to contribute to the narrative, mark-making, combining picture and text, [and] black and white bold graphics”. Her aesthetic is intentionally loose and naïve, with a sense of raw immediacy that is also apparent in her subject matter: She is inspired by her surrounding environments – both natural or urban – and the creatures, objects, smells and scribbles that inhabit, adorn and mark these spaces.
Since her graduation in 2015, Wentzel has held a solo show at Joburg’s Kalashnikovv Gallery and participated in group exhibitions and prominent art fairs across South Africa. She also apprenticed at Warren Editions to receive training in relief and intaglio printmaking techniques.
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Two artists to #meetinthemaking
In “The shape of ideas”, Marna Hattingh has managed to achieve – with just two colours – the vivid graphic style and dizzying contrasts for which she is known. This fun limited edition screen print is bound to brighten up your home (office).
Hattingh has held solo and group shows in South Africa and Australia and participated in group exhibitions in Hong Kong and Milan as well as residencies and workshops in Zambia and Belgium. Her work is housed in collections in South Africa and the UK. South African born and educated, she is currently based in Australia, where she is represented by .M Contemporary.
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“Pivot” by Elsabé Milandri is inspired by life drawings from her sketchbook. The gestural, fluid, lithe lines speak of a shift in posture, a shift in perception; the continual adapting, responding and adjusting of “in-between” movement that has come to characterise the year 2020. She describes the experience of life drawing beautifully: “[It includes] all the mis-looking and re-looking, the feeling of shape and negative space, the gravity and lightness of limb and stretch, the process of it all.”
Milandri (based in Cape Town) has held solo exhibitions in South Africa and Switzerland. Her work is taken up in private collections in the UK, USA, and throughout Europe. <Buy work>
