NIC FREDMAN: A RETROSPECTIVE 6 Spin st / Cape Town 30 October - 30 November 2021
N
ic Fredman is showing a collection of oil paintings and mixed media pieces in a show entitled “Nic Fredman: A Retrospective”. Showing from October the 30th till November the 30th.
The majority of paintings on show are comprised of small panoramic landscapes produced over the last 3 years, many of them through the Covid lockdowns. The other work was produced over the years when Nic returned to Cape Town in 2003 after living in London for 28 years when he set up studio at ‘The Old Breweries’ in Woodstock. This work is comprised of four themes: “Small Landscapes”, “The Dark Rooms”, “Woodstock Anthills” and “Artefacts and Reconstructions.” The Dark Rooms Nic says: “ ‘The Dark Rooms’ are a body of work initiated when I was working in my London studio and drew inspiration from those artists inspired by the ‘WunderKamer’ and ‘Cabinets of Curiosities’. I would spend hours in the wonderful museums of London, the Victoria and Albert, National History and especially the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal green with their marvellous collection of Victorian dolls houses. These paintings are of imagined, invented rooms or Dolls house rooms. They tend to have a darkness to them where shadow rather than light predominates. Woodstock Anthills “The body of work titled: ‘Woodstock Anthills’ are paintings on prepared paper using images of Woodstock, with fragments of the landscape, textures and overlays. These paintings were started in my Woodstock studio and draw on the surrounding landscape and fragments current in my imagination at the time.
44
The Nursery, Oil on Board, 54 x 54cm
I had a great studio, once used by Cecil Skotnes in an annexe of the Old Breweries Complex. Working in the Gothic, Old Breweries building had its own inspiration but I would garner images on my daily walks around the neighbourhood. I was particularly drawn to small details from facades, shop windows and street corners” Artefacts and Reconstructions A series of paintings and constructions using found objects and paint, and collage. In 2011 I exhibited some of these constructions at the Design Indaba. Whereas those were 3 dimensional, sculptural and some real cabinets, these painting are largely collaged matrixes. Some resemble diagrams; others recall the printer tray grid where disparate objects and images have been forced to coexist. I will be showing several mixed media works on paper as well as work constructed on wood using found objects.
W W W. A R T T I M E S . C O . Z A
