Artist’s biography
Neil Badenhorst (b. 1995) is an artist and illustrator based in Pretoria. He completed his Undergraduate and Honours degrees in Visual Communication with a major in Illustration at the Open Window, graduating in 2017 and 2018 respectively. Badenhorst began his Masters in Illustration in 2019 (which he is currently in the process of finishing), exploring ritual spaces and crisis heterotopias in illustrated fantasy books. Badenhorst has been pursuing a career as an independent artist since his early days at University, and has also worked as a freelance illustrator and designer, as well as a lecturer since then.
Artist’s statement
Badenhorst’s ultimate goal as a creative is to be a ‘jack of all trades, master of some’. Through formally taught in digital design and illustration, Badenhorst’s artistic practice extends into painting, collage, and more recently digital and traditional installation art. His practice is largely concerned with themes such as liminality, multi-layered space and experience, queer themes, ritual process and imaginary worlds. Badenhorst’s creative process relies heavily on intuition, and his dreamscapes are a desperate attempt to map out the eternally expanding internal landscape, and recollection of memories from other worlds and universes.
My masters study is concerned with ritual and heterotopic spaces within illustrated fantasy narratives, and how these may facilitate rites of passage for readers. My masters exhibition, between worlds, explores these themes in practice. The exhibition centres around fragments of a narrative I have been piecing together for most of my life, from recorded dreams and daydreams. The exhibition consists of illustrated pieces which tell stories about things I ‘remember’ in the otherworld. The gallery space ultimately becomes both a ritual space (a liminal space between this world and our own), but also becomes the book of sorts; as one must move through the space to follow and piece together the narrative. The narrative, and world, the pieces centre around was never exactly a intentional creation on my part. It developed naturally from dreams and my imagination, piecing itself together. Thus artmaking, here, became a deeply personal ritual process where I am almost desperately clinging to the memories of my life in the otherworld I encounter when asleep or daydreaming; and it is these stories and spaces that allow me to reflect and make better sense of my experiences within the ‘real’ world.
the red house on the hill, digital media print, 29,7 x 84cm, 2020
two of us, digital media print, 18,4 x 26cm, Edition of 4, 2020
willow, digital media print, 18,4 x 26cm, Edition of 4, 2020
it's nice to have a friend, digital media print, 16,3 x 23cm, Edition of 5, 2020
ivy (my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand), digital media print, 16,3 x 23cm, Edition of 4, 2020
(lamentations), digital media print, 14,8 x 21cm, 2020
Artefact 3, Gouache, acrylic and pastel on cardboard, 27,7 x 27,7cm, 2020
it's nice to have a friend pt II, digital media print, 18,4 x 26cm, Edition of 3, 2020
across the water, digital media print, 20,4 x 55cm, Edition of 2, 2020
learning to fly, digital media print, 20,5 x 29cm, Edition of 4, 2021
playing at the end of the universe, digital media print, 29,7 x 42cm, edition of 3, 2021
I know the way (I don't know the way), digital media print, 29,7 x 42cm, 2021
is it cold in the water, digital media print, 21 x 59,4cm, Edition of 3, 2021
nothing fades like the light, Digital media print, 25,1 x 35,5cm, edition of 3, 2021
#3, Gouache, acrylic, Fabriano paper and pastel on cardboard, 27,7 x 27,7cm, 2020
end of the world, digital media print, 23 x 65cm, 2021
(immaterial), digital media print, 15,6 x 22cm, 2021
everything was beautiful and nothing hurt, digital media print, 21,6 x 30,5cm, Edition of 3, 2020
castle at the roof of the world, digital media print, 27,6 x 39cm, Edition of 2, 2021
(the carpenter), digital media print, 21 x 29,7cm, Edition of 4, 2021
affairs of the heart, digital media print, 20 x 42cm, 2020
sometimes he's in my dreams, digital media print, 29,7 x 40cm, 2020,
willow pt II, digital media print, 21 x 14,8cm, Edition of 10, 2020
overlapping narratives, digital media print, 29,7 x 26,7cm, 2020
my internal narratives are at war with one another, digital media print, 22,2 x 25cm, Edition of 4, 2020
Claudia, Wilhelm R and Me, digital media print, 20 x 20cm, 2020
when i close my eyes i see everything that made me flying around in invisible pieces, digital media print, 39,9 x 64,5cm, 2020
between two worlds, digital media print, 17,1 x 33,2cm, Edition of 2, 2020
