11:11

Eclectica Contemporary - Feb 2021 Collaborative design group exhibition

www.eclecticacontemporary.co.za

As a new beginning is offered with the start of a new year, we remain impacted and influenced by the challenges and triumphs of the year just past. At Eclectica Contemporary, we are proud to present a new exhibition format that marries contemporary art alongside notable contemporary African designers, ceramicists and creatives in conversation with the gallery’s collection of iconic mid-century modern and vintage furniture pieces. Titled 11:11, we present a group exhibition that is an open ended experimentation with design aesthetics, local creators and collaborators, the exhibition will continue for an extended period, with new pieces being included and rotated in the space continuously. The artworks shown alongside iconic furniture pieces and contemporary local design artefacts all draw inspiration from nature with an emphasis on sustainability.

The artists exhibiting in 11:11 offer insight into expression through organic shapes, investigated through colour palettes and offers new avenues of exploration along the surfaces and textures of their canvases. The work of Natasha Barnes compliments design pieces through its gentle abstraction of form and dynamic use of colour, while Ben Coutouvidis’s paintings remind us to think carefully around histories and nostalgia through their hazy depictions of familiar sights. Similarly, Georgia Lane’s pieces hint at vistas and environments that seem recognisable but are constructed through automative strokes and imagined sites.

Ibrahim Khatab, Untitled (3), 2020, mixed media on board, 101.5 x 101.5 cm

Above: Georgia Lane, Letters to my mother, 2020, Acrylic on Canvas, 127 x 101,5 x 4 cm . Opposite Page: Serge Diakota Mabilama, Unusual Realities 5, 2020, Mixed media drawing, 30 x 40cm

Aimee Lindeque’s circular illustrations map out how inextricably intwined our realities are, where individual actions impact our habitats and one little nudge could shift things out of balance. In creating these works, the artists investigate ideas in new ways and through their curation across the gallery spaces, the artworks are given new contexts and interpretations alongside select design pieces.

Key contemporary African designers have been selected to exhibit in the gallery space alongside the artworks demonstrating the curatorial stance of art and design seen on the same platform. 11:11 signals a return to the gallery’s roots - embedded in a passion for design and art understood as intwined and intermixed. Bofred’s design origins of refurbishing iconic design pieces and then moving onto sustainably sourced and produced new objects aligns with the exhibitions intentions of acknowledging synchronicity and celebrating considered and beautiful stories alongside the designs. Haldane Martin’s pieces accentuate playfulness and nostalgia in design through sleek and intricate pieces that pair colour and texture, while WIID Designs offers an elevated approach to upcycled and reintegrated materials.

Ibrahim Khatab, Untitled (4), 2020, mixed media on board, 101.5 x 101.5 cm

“An open ended experimentation with design aesthetics, local creators and collaborators”

In collaboration with Imiso Ceramics, Eclectica Contemporary presents a selection of up and coming ceramic designers who are pioneering new approaches to ceramics and sculpture. Showcasing ceramic pieces alongside paintings, furniture and design objects, the exhibition highlights the blurring of creative engagement across mediums and approaches.

The exhibition theme explores synchronicity as a way to make sense and let go of expectations and coincidence. Embracing the twists and turns of tumultuous years, uncertainties and innovative new ideas. It is an investigation into the spaces we curate, make precious, and also query the needs of functionality and beauty as we seek pleasure in our environments. The exhibition forefronts finding inspiration in beauty, being challenged by design and allows for viewers to be fed by aesthetic explosions of creativity.

Ibrahim Khatab, Untitled (III), 2020, mixed media on board, 120 x 120 cm

ON GOLDEN SOIL

Mandlenkosi Mavengere

By Andrea Kemsley and Elsje Oosthuizen. www.christophermollerart.co.za

Mandlenkosi Mavengere has the ability to capture the essence of hope and endurance in his family and the community of Africa, through his beautifully detailed artworks. They reflect on socio- economic migration and the shift of personal identity, whilst exploring the journey of wealth- seeking from within.

His upcoming exhibition ‘On Golden Soil’ is a study of the people that choose to migrate and the ambitions that drive them to do it. Individuals leave their familiar homes and territories, searching for better fortunes in larger cities and foreign countries. Often, many of them temporarily place their dreams on hold to support themselves in the immediate future and adopt any role that meets this need. Through these artworks, Mavengere narrates tales of his much- beloved ‘anchor’ – his grandfather, himself and his fellow migrants. He utilises the ‘Gondruala’ – a fictitious currency used as a backdrop in his artworks; this constantly reminds the viewer of the driving force of wealth and what it represents to Mavengere and his fellow fortune seekers.

Dreams Never Grow Old, acrylic on canvas - 57 x 68 cm

Mavengere’s family originates from Matabele Land, Zimbabwe. Like his grandfather, he travelled across the border to Johannesburg, an African city that represents rich opportunities. He began at the Artist Proof Studio, learning and nurturing his passionate precision for transforming concepts into highly descriptive imagery. After curating an exclusive exhibition for Strauss and Co., Mavengere joined the mentorship programme under the William Kentridge Studio, where he further developed his unique techniques with etchings and prominent linocut banknotes, exploring themes true to his Migration Concept. Including other fairs and collections, Mavengere’s artworks have been featured at the 2019 Belgium and Paris Art Fairs and at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and Minerals Council South Africa. He currently creates artworks at his studio at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg. “My banknote artworks are a framework within which one can observe the issues of migration with relevance to the socioeconomic divergence of one identity and the convergence of another”, says Mavengere. The permeating contours on the banknotes act as maps in which lines delineate the migration routes from other African countries. The currency of the ‘Gondruala’, represents the hope and potential for the resource-rich continent of Africa, whilst the banknotes divulge stories of both success and great loss.

Mavengere’s pieces overflow with rich imagery, alluding to key concepts and themes through the migration journey. The classic Singer sewing machine embodies the rediscovered passion for tailoring that Mavengere’s grandfather felt upon his return to Zimbabwe. His grandfather was a formidable tailor and left Bulawayo in search of a grander future. On his journey into a

Thorns for Greater Benefit, acrylic on canvas, 57 x 68 cm

neighbouring country, he found himself tending to gardening and construction jobs in Johannesburg. Today he is reunited with his country and with his real passions of creating garments and farming.

Whilst you move through this collection, you will discover elegant Zimbabwean women with magnificent headscarves, which paint stories of the identities that the migrants leave behind when they cross over the national border. These headwear pieces crown the individual with the stereotypes placed on them in a foreign land. A loss of identity which has a great effect on many migrants, most significantly, a disconnection to their roots.

Lloyd Pollack, esteemed South African art writer, took a personal journey through Mavengere’s concepts that highlight the greater discussion around the migration concept between nations – “The phrase ‘the African United States’ has a hollow ring, as the continent’s different nations have never formed a harmonious collective. Nor do the words ‘promise to pay the bearer’ ring true, particularly in Zimbabwe and South Africa where the currency is notoriously volatile, and the promise of fixed value is constantly broken”. Pollack closes with, “Mavengere’s corpus possesses an undeniable universal relevance.”

Christopher Moller, director of the Christopher Moller Gallery, leaves us with his thoughts on the exhibition, “Mandlenkosi Mavengere’s exhibition; ‘On Golden Soil’, explores his cultural routes in Matabele Land, Zimbabwe. Mavengere and his family were forced to move to South Africa because of the economic hardship brought on by the Zimbabwean government’s socialist/populist principles and action against the masses, combined with rampant corruption and greed.

Umthala, acrylic on canvas, 120 x 125 cm

Immigration is a global phenomenon that countries and entire continents can relate to. Throughout history, great civilisations have been built on stringent economic practices. The artist’s fictitious currency the ‘Gondruala’, shows mankind’s pursuit of money for survival and symbolises that ‘currency is king’.

Sadly, as we become one homogenous society worldwide, we risk losing our sense of heritage, our ‘value systems’, that have been handed down from generation to generation. ‘On Golden Soil’ is a celebration of our culture; self-discipline, forgiveness, humility, compassion and universal attributes that seem to have been lost on the modern world, and it is eating away at our livelihood”.

‘On Golden Soil’ will be hosted virtually and launched on Thursday the 28th of January at 10h00 SAST. Please visit the Christopher Moller Gallery website for more information, viewings will be available by appointment. On display until Friday the 19th of February 2021.

TAKE FIVE

The Melrose Gallery

www.themelrosegallery.com

Take five is an online exhibition by Aza Mansongi that engages with the position of the self in the broader context of what we have come to term as ‘the new normal.’ Mansongi uses self-reflection as a point of departure and meditates on the tension between our changing social relations and consciousness. Through the visual dynamism of her works, we reconsider interpersonal connections and shared moments of humanity. She demonstrates an innate understanding that art is not an unconscious behaviour but rather a conscious feeling. Take five embraces its platform as an online exhibition and calls on the viewer to embrace the exhibition’s title – to take five in this new moment, in this new era and embrace the renewal of the self that this age has insisted upon. Only then – after a moment of intentional rest – can we begin to rebuild.

Mansongi’s colourful abstracts radiate energy, humour and humanity. They vibrate with the hope of happiness with and for one another, despite – or, perhaps, because of - the frenetic unpredictability of modern life. Each day faces the standard challenges we have come to expect but it is compounded by the challenge of facing everyday life with a pandemic. As a result, we have been forced to pause in order to allow for processing and, in time, for healing to come to all of us.

Take five looks at works that vibrate with vigour and wit. They are the embodiment of celebrating life and all that it offers, with an overlay of optimism – depicted by vignettes of evil that are overwhelmed by expanses of festivity and love. The exhibition calls for us to make room for the unwanted ‘other’ that is COVID-19. By inviting in this undesirable guest, we take five for ourselves by using the moment for self-evaluation.

Archive, 2019, Acrylic on cotton canvas, 160 x 160 cm

As we appreciate her works, we reflect inwardly, finding a moment of happiness within ourselves and within our connection to others, no matter how brief it is nor how socially distanced this connection may have to be. The result is a cheerful tangle of indistinct bodies that mix and mingle, illustrating the magic of uniting and exchanging with others.

Aza Mansongi’s art doesn’t speak – it sings. And as we listen to its visual song, we see a harmony rather than a melody. We invite you to join us as we enjoy, consider and reflect on life’s moments. While hardship, strife and trauma have become mainstays of day-to-day life, these difficulties are not all-encompassing. Despite lockdown and the isolation necessitated by the pandemic, humanity prevails and through this, we will rebuild a new, shared consciousness.

About Aza Mansongi

Aza Mansongi’s Congolese background schooled her in classical, figurative realism. Growing up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, an area massively impacted by war and conflict, greatly impacted her studies and indeed, her current life in Douala, Cameroon. Despite a childhood fraught with uncertainty, her innate positivity has given her artworks a unique ‘Aza’ style. Whilst Aza could easily have been forgiven for creating artworks filled with angst and negativity, this would have conflicted with the positive way in which she approaches life and everything in it.

Her work pulses with the hope for and enjoyment of social cohesion, no matter what cards have been dealt. For Aza, there is art in finding joy and wit in the midst of frenzied unpredictability. For her, life is a ‘celebration [in which] hope is all that matters’. This ethos goes beyond the realm of ideology and becomes almost palpable in her bright, happy, and somewhat chaotically busy paintings.

Sans Issue, 2019, Acrylic on cotton canvas, 160 x 160 cm

Balance, 2019, Acrylic on cotton canvas, 140 x 200 cm

Aza’s art sings the story of everyday life in Africa: the meeting of modern and traditional worlds and the excitement and energy off which we thrive, despite the multitude of daily challenges we face. Aza’s art speaks of our persevering – even thriving – humanity that tenaciously pushes aside suffering and conflict.

Perhaps the tool that makes this boundless positivity possible is the ecstatic sense of humour that permeates her artworks and attracts like-minded collectors to her exhibitions. Her infinite joy and infectious lust for life defeats the vignettes of evil and depictions of struggle in her work. This optimistic revelry inspires collectors to bring this same energy into their personal spaces.

Aza works across different mediums including painting, sculpture, installation and video. She has exhibited extensively both in Africa and abroad. In 2008, she produced a monumental fresco (80 x 3 metres) with the 3 Kokoricos Collective and Belgian artist Arnaid Debal at the French Lycée in Kinshasha and, in 2017, she appointed The Melrose Gallery to represent her in South Africa.

Archive, 2019, Acrylic on cotton canvas, 160 x 160 cm