KATE GOTTGENS
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KATE GOTTGENS
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KATE GOTTGENS PAINTINGS 2007 – 2015
Four Horsemen - 2015
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Studio, Hout Bay, Cape Town, 2015
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02 //
INTRODUCTION / HEADING - IVOR POWELL
PAINTINGS / 2007-2015 05 // INFINITE LOOP 19 // GHOST ALBUM 29 // DELIRIUM 39 // SAVAGE NATURE 51 // THE WAR OF LOVE 57 // EVERYTHING YOU WANT 67 // MALICE AFORETHOUGHT 85 // IS THIS THE PLACE? 101 //
MERRY HELL AND THE DREAMBODY
109 //
BLACK RIVER PARK
117 //
ADRIFT
123 //
ASLEEP INSIDE YOU
136 //
COMMENTARY / DECLARING THE SURFACE - ALEXANDRA DODD
181 //
LIST OF PAINTINGS
185 //
BIOGRAPHY
CONTENTS
Open Road - 2010
// 01
INTRODUCTION HEADING
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// IVOR POWELL
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quisque placerat est at justo pellentesque interdum. Pellentesque ipsum elit, imperdiet quis tincidunt et, auctor vitae mi. Quisque aliquet ex turpis, id fermentum nunc congue vel. Curabitur posuere at lectus et mattis. Aenean suscipit mauris sed enim aliquet placerat. Donec tincidunt rhoncus libero, ac vestibulum nisi vestibulum eget. Fusce sit amet fringilla ipsum. Sed orci lorem, finibus porttitor ex a, laoreet fringilla ante. Sed ullamcorper ex vitae enim convallis, at molestie risus tempus. Ut nec fringilla neque, nec vestibulum eros. Morbi eu convallis nisl. Vivamus ipsum velit, hendrerit eget convallis posuere, dictum eget nunc. Nunc non aliquam erat. Nunc mattis semper dui, at scelerisque felis ultrices eget. Ut blandit luctus rutrum. Curabitur vel metus malesuada risus porttitor malesuada at quis metus. Aenean id venenatis eros, eu ultricies risus. Vestibulum ac dui metus. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. In ut est eget turpis ultricies interdum et ac tortor. Cras convallis erat eget tortor interdum, in fringilla metus euismod. Nullam purus lorem, euismod non ultrices id, tempor ut nisi. Sed dignissim ac ligula non imperdiet. Donec maximus arcu sed tellus dapibus molestie. Nullam at turpis purus. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
ex in, laoreet nulla. Etiam augue lectus, scelerisque et aliquet a, faucibus a arcu. Mauris neque risus, tincidunt in dolor vel, venenatis fermentum velit. Donec facilisis interdum sapien, et tincidunt dolor venenatis ut. Vestibulum elementum blandit eros vitae gravida. Donec mattis ipsum urna, convallis elementum urna imperdiet non. Curabitur ullamcorper aliquet lectus, sed malesuada nunc tincidunt in. Sed ac consectetur diam. Sed convallis, nulla non sagittis vulputate, velit nisi feugiat nisi, eu tincidunt nulla urna eget leo. Vivamus fermentum nibh est, et vulputate tortor consectetur id. Morbi pretium varius dignissim. Nunc ac arcu quis lectus vestibulum tempor ac ac ex. Quisque laoreet tortor in facilisis sagittis. Nunc scelerisque sapien non est vulputate placerat. Nunc lectus turpis, fringilla vel nisi vitae, vulputate pretium leo. Phasellus volutpat neque ut mauris auctor, non egestas eros venenatis. Nunc non ipsum a nulla blandit rhoncus. Proin non posuere nisi. Duis eu mauris ullamcorper, sagittis tortor id, finibus nunc. Nunc mattis velit ut diam varius lobortis. Mauris lectus augue, laoreet id porttitor nec, consequat fermentum mi. Praesent gravida enim nec sapien tempus, nec semper metus euismod.
Vestibulum a mollis augue. Morbi non arcu elit. Donec et dignissim nibh. Mauris ut ante at leo posuere feugiat. Curabitur id quam luctus, aliquam nisl ac, iaculis risus. Integer ornare ante ornare, laoreet quam ac, ultricies nunc. Praesent eget risus sit amet ligula fringilla venenatis. Nullam hendrerit, orci quis cursus interdum, erat dolor facilisis risus, sagittis hendrerit nulla risus a enim. Donec sagittis congue ipsum, vel vulputate tellus elementum eu.
Donec felis odio, luctus vitae congue sed, blandit ac metus. Aliquam eget sem vitae ante dignissim mollis non consectetur urna. Proin accumsan augue nec orci scelerisque, vitae semper neque facilisis. Quisque fermentum ut purus in dictum. Maecenas venenatis blandit ipsum vel ultricies. Donec neque neque, tincidunt eget odio id, tincidunt posuere orci. Fusce vitae justo sit amet elit vestibulum sodales.
Vivamus pharetra gravida nisi et vestibulum. Nam at vulputate quam. Duis massa magna, sollicitudin vitae ipsum sed, ultrices dictum nibh. Praesent blandit ligula quis sapien consectetur dapibus. Pellentesque porta erat ut lacinia luctus. Pellentesque ultrices venenatis nibh, ut ornare erat dapibus id. Sed ipsum justo, auctor finibus tempor vitae, venenatis ut neque. Maecenas mattis, nulla ac condimentum maximus, velit velit vulputate nisl, ac vestibulum neque dolor quis purus. Duis consectetur massa eu ante consequat, a congue ipsum convallis.
Vestibulum et felis nec justo sagittis convallis vitae sit amet elit. Aenean ultrices ligula in ligula rutrum, a feugiat nunc dignissim. Maecenas ut hendrerit neque. Ut vitae diam sed risus bibendum mollis sed eget odio. Nullam rutrum sit amet risus pellentesque porta. Donec mattis nisi sit amet sem blandit, at pretium lectus ultrices. Suspendisse tellus velit, efficitur in enim id, maximus eleifend turpis. Curabitur nec dolor at libero fermentum facilisis id et est. Duis sed tellus porttitor, dignissim orci nec, malesuada elit. Phasellus eros lorem, dictum in tortor vel, volutpat placerat justo. Nullam cursus condimentum urna vitae ultrices.
Mauris posuere elementum lectus vel auctor. Integer vitae porttitor tellus, at vestibulum eros. Cras dolor nunc, cursus ac eros sed, hendrerit volutpat lectus. Sed felis urna, egestas ac risus eget, pretium commodo tellus. Morbi auctor rutrum urna, a viverra ligula bibendum quis. Duis neque elit, suscipit in mauris vel, dignissim condimentum mi. In bibendum, neque eu aliquet varius, justo turpis porta nunc, at facilisis neque nunc ut neque. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Nam rutrum libero eget justo sodales, in imperdiet elit sagittis. Quisque eleifend, arcu a egestas dapibus, nisi felis laoreet urna, vitae fringilla ex tortor porta lorem. Cras faucibus, nulla non luctus pharetra, neque est dignissim leo, id placerat nunc felis sed urna. Aenean semper non neque quis tincidunt. Phasellus in est sollicitudin, efficitur
Vestibulum bibendum feugiat mattis. Aenean tincidunt semper risus. Integer quis nisi auctor, auctor tortor non, aliquet odio. Nunc rhoncus at neque sit amet pellentesque. Duis ac sodales quam. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Donec mi metus, efficitur nec finibus sit amet, tincidunt et diam. Nullam sit amet pellentesque lectus. Pellentesque vel elit congue, tincidunt leo vel, maximus metus. Integer eu pellentesque ante, ut semper tortor. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent.
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PAINTINGS // 2007-2015 //
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INFINITE LOOP
// 05
Baggy Creeps - 2015
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Field of the Cloth of Gold - 2015
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Infant - 2015
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Skeletons - 2015
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Milk Teeth - 2015
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Dawn, Exit - 2015
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Shadow Baby - 2015
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Clickety-Clack - 2015
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Oh, Green World - 2015
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GHOST ALBUM
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Young Death on a Horse - 2014
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Gateway - 2014 Riders - 2014
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Mother - 2013
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New Territory - 2014
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Zeitgeist - 2015
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Sea Ablaze - 2015
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DELIRIUM
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Fair Play - 2015
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Little Birds - 2013
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Ragged Woods - 2013
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Merry-Go-Round - 2015
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Pink Haze - 2014
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Interior: Monkeyboy - 2013
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SAVAGE NATURE
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Squirrel - 2014
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The Collectors I - 2013
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Hunter - 2014
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The Collectors II - 2013
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Colonial Mentality I - 2014
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The Inquisitors - 2014
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Red Landscape - 2014
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THE WAR OF LOVE
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War of Love II - 2013
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Cornered - 2014
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I Could Kill You - 2013
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Vestige - 2015
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EVERYTHING YOU WANT
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Airport - 2014
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Everything You Want - 2013
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// 61
Holiday Inn - 2015
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Maputo Swimming Pool - 2012
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Swimming Pool - 2013
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Getting Dark - 2013
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MALICE AFORETHOUGHT
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Suburban Street - 2013
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Girl with Dahlias - 2013
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Boy with Sausage Dog - 2013
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Sunday Morning - 2013
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Boy in the Sun - 2013
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Auction Lot - 2013
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Black Feathers - 2012
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// 79
Mystery Couple - 2012
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Open Door - 2013
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Pool - 2013
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Camper - 2013
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IS THIS THE PLACE?
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Interior: Yesterday, Now - 2013
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Interior: Willow - 2012
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Interior - 2012
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Interior: Johannesburg - 2013
// 91
Interior: Bulawayo - 2013
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Petty Crime I - 2012
Petty Crime II - 2012
Petty Crime III - 2012
Petty Crime IV - 2012
// 93
Petty Crime V - 2012
Petty Crime VI - 2012
Petty Crime VII - 2012
Petty Crime VIII - 2012
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Red Interior - 2012
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Landscape Fold - 2012
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// 99
Interior: Float Glass - 2013
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MERRY HELL AND THE DREAMBODY
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Serpent - 2010
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Harlequin Mother - 2010
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Babies - 2010
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Monster Love - 2010
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Wolves - 2010
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BLACK RIVER PARK
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Three Graces - 2010
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Men at a Pool - 2012
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Bone by Bone - 2010
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Softly Fall - 2010
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ADRIFT
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Dial Tone - 2010
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// 119
Belem (triptych) - 2010
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Shapeshifters - 2010
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ASLEEP INSIDE YOU
// 123
Untitled I - 2008
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Untitled II - 2008 Untitled III - 2008
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Untitled IV - 2008 Untitled V - 2008 Untitled VI - 2008 Untitled VII - 2008
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Untitled VIII - 2008
// 127
Untitled IX - 2008
128 //
Untitled X - 2008 Untitled XI - 2008 Untitled XII - 2008
// 129
Untitled XIII - 2008 Untitled XIV - 2008 Untitled XV - 2008
130 //
Untitled XVI - 2008 Untitled XVII - 2008
// 131
Untitled XVIII - 2008
132 //
Untitled XIX - 2008 Untitled XX - 2008
// 133
Untitled XXI - 2008 Untitled XXII - 2008 Untitled XXIII - 2008
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// 135
COMMENTARY DECLARING THE SURFACE
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// ALEXANDRA DODD
Untitled XXIV - 2007
136 //
Little Deaths
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Untitled I - 2007
It was never about ‘Little Deaths’ in the sexual sense. It is about the small quotidian losses that happen every day. It is about her son who was on the cusp of puberty – turning 12 or 13 – the loss of his childhood – that feeling of being an initiate, growing from a boy into a man. She wants to make delicate paintings about boys.
Untitled II - 2007 Untitled III - 2007
Untitled IV - 2007
Could be a cradle, could be a coffin. Now it is a pod, now a canoe. Some of the transitions are almost imperceptible, but the boy is moving forward even as he sleeps. In the morning, he is an echo of himself.
// 137
Little Deaths
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Untitled V - 2007
On the anniversary of her mother’s death, she and her children bake a cake. It is June – the coldest of the winter months. They eat some of the cake, and the rest she throws into the fire. The next day, she salvages the ashes, takes them to her studio and starts to paint. She begins by applying a glaze to the canvas and the ash combines with it, becoming chalky as the varnish dries. Packed onto the surface, it has an opaque, dense quality. She starts to work into it. It is porous, fugitive – a bit like unbaked clay or cement. Colour bleeds into it quite readily, she finds. She is never quite sure what is going to happen next. Accidental shapes arise as liquid ash drips down the canvas.
Untitled VI - 2007
The glass becomes embedded in the texture of the paint, so that you can hardly see it – just the faintest glimmer when the light catches it at a certain angle.
138 //
Little Deaths
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Untitled VII - 2007
‘He’s a pretty child with calm eyes, a snub nose and a full mouth. It’s a face that you get to know and love because, even as this child is watching the world, you’re watching him grow. From scene to scene, you see the curve of his jaw change, notice his thickening brows and witness his slender arms opening to embrace the world and its clear and darkening skies.’ Manohla Dargis, ‘Movie Review: Linklater’s “Boyhood” Is a Model of Cinematic Realism’, New York Times, 10 July 2014
Untitled VIII - 2007
Untitled IX - 2007
‘Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.’ Friedrich Nietzsche, Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Einzelbänden, 1894–1904
// 139
Little Deaths
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Untitled X - 2007
She finds a photograph of boy soldiers on the back of a truck. They are armed with rifles, and there is an awful paradox in their young faces and their intent to kill. She starts the painting in response to this photograph, and as she works into the surface with ash and paint, other shapes begin to emerge – a skull, a lamb, a house with a red tin roof. The guns that were there in the original photograph don’t make it through into the painting. They are gone, but the potential for violence remains. There is always that somehow.
Untitled XI - 2007
There is this random image from a magazine – nothing that she knows – and the story emerges as she paints. Some children have gathered together in the night – huddled against the menacing emptiness of a dark landscape. Flames are held aloft like batons masking secret instances of inner combustion. A figure looks on from another plane within the frame. Perhaps it is their scoutmaster; perhaps a ghost. Who can say?
140 //
Asleep Inside You
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Untitled XXV - 2008
Untitled XXVI - 2008
The Breakwater Prison was constructed in 1860 to house British convicts working on the breakwater, which eventually made it possible for the Cape Town harbour to be built. It was the Colony’s largest and most feared convict station for most of the 19th century and was the first site to racially segregate black and white convicts. Before segregation, the sleeping arrangements were that a white convict had to sleep between two black convicts. The rationale was that, with the language and cultural barrier, less plotting and dissent would take place. Condensed summery from Hariet Deacon, ‘A History of the Breakwater Prison from 1859 to 1905’ University of Cape Town ‘Since 1991, it has served as the premises of the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business and a hotel run by the Protea chain. The Protea Hotel Breakwater Lodge offers first class conference and function facilities at highly competitive rates.’ ‘Protea Breakwater Lodge’, University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, Retrieved 27 May 2015
Untitled XXVII - 2008 Untitled XXVIII - 2008
She sets out with a clear intention. She wants to create a feeling of claustrophobia.
// 141
Asleep Inside You
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Untitled XXIX - 2008
She finds herself unable to be what defined her being.
142 //
Asleep Inside You
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Untitled XXX - 2008
In the course of her research, she chances on a props warehouse that services the film industry. It is a huge hangar-like space in an industrial park in Salt River. The interior is dank and gloomy, bathed in acid green light filtered through a corrugated plastic skylight overhead. Everything inside is old and faintly malodorous. As film props, these things must have that used, second-hand look about them – a convincing patina. Cracked, sooty, rusted or defunct, all of these items have been used. There are discarded tracksuits and abandoned ice skates, morbid piles of discarded coats, glasses and shoes, African masks, woven baskets, heaps of grey blankets, fake weapons, soiled South African combat gear, which may or may not have been worn during South Africa’s forgotten Border War. Fridges, stoves, trolleys, knives, forks, enamelware, biscuit tins and other miscellaneous kitchen paraphernalia – a vast repository of human detritus. In the muti section, there are animal skins, ostrich feathers, porcupine quills, bright powdered pigments and hanging herbs. The foetus is real. But what about the severed fingers in the jar? Authenticity and provenance mean nothing here. Artefacts and simulacra have been thrown together in a vast brimming stronghold of mingled fact and fiction. Wherever you move, the static melancholy gaze of the taxidermied eland is upon you. When she steps into the warehouse, she feels as if she has entered a dream. It is the collective unconscious made manifest. She takes out her camera and starts to build up her own private archive of references. Untitled XII - 2008
‘Don’t be a fool, Reb Zalman. The moon is shining. The heavens are bright. Evil is nothing but a coil of madness.’ Isaac Bashevis Singer, ‘Moon and Madness’, The Collected Stories, 1982
Untitled XXXI - 2008
Untitled XV - 2008
Untitled XXXII - 2008
// 143
Asleep Inside You
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Untitled XXXIII - 2008
‘The Egyptians worshipped the crocodile as a guide to the dead in the underworld. It represents the forces of the unconscious – possibly because the crocodile emerges from the hidden depths to lay its eggs on the riverbank. In some dreams, the crocodile or alligator represents a personal confrontation with eternity. Depending upon the dream, the crocodile may well depict your fears about your inner hugeness, signifying a personal awareness of merging with the many lives held in the collective unconscious.’ Tony Crisp, ‘Alligator Crocodile’, Dream Dictionary, Retrieved 27 May 2015 Untitled XXXIV - 2008
Untitled IV - 2008
Untitled XIII - 2008
Hardwired in the practice of pursuit and capture, we search for something until it is found. Could be deer or fox, criminal or terrorist, lover or job. Chase and kill. Search and find. Oscillating around the desired position or state, we set the target, take aim. If we stop hunting, will we cease to be human? Is that that fear – that if we give it up, we will lose the hunger to live? What then? Something else entirely.
144 //
Asleep Inside You
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Untitled II - 2008
It is familiar territory, this – the perversions, the warped addictions to the ongoing asymmetries locked into this culture.
Untitled III - 2008
She discovers an abandoned abattoir in Maitland. It is a desolate crypt-like space – tiled and mostly empty except for leftover cables, chutes, defunct machinery and the occasional upturned chair. In her imagination, it comes to serve as the location for the scenes of these crimes.
Untitled XXXV - 2008
The palette is almost numbingly monochromatic, barring sudden flushes of pink, which creep in when she least expects them – at times, quite electric, unsettlingly ecstatic. She thinks of pink as a colour of arousal – or of horror.
Untitled VII - 2008
Untitled V - 2008
It’s not anything that you’ve directly experienced. It’s an imagined horror that comes to life in your dreams.
// 145
Asleep Inside You
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Untitled XXXVI - 2008
‘The two bank robbers held four hostages, three women and one man, for the next 131 hours. The hostages were strapped with dynamite and held in a bank vault until finally rescued. After their rescue, the hostages exhibited a shocking attitude, considering that they were threatened, abused, and feared for their lives for over five days. In their media interviews, it was clear that they supported their captors and actually feared law enforcement personnel who came to their rescue. The hostages had begun to feel the captors were actually protecting them from the police. One woman later became engaged to one of the criminals and another developed a legal defense fund to aid in their criminal defence fees.’ Dr Joseph Carver, ‘Love and the Stockholm Syndrome: The Mystery of Loving an Abuser’, 2003 Untitled XXXVII - 2008
After a chance meeting at a hotel in 1957, a Holocaust survivor and the Nazi officer who tortured her, resume their sadomasochistic relationship which eventually threatens them both. He is now the night porter at a Vienna hotel and a reluctant member of a group of former Nazis, attempting to cover up their past by wiping out witnesses to their wartime activities. Condensed plot summary of Liliana Cavalli’s The Night Porter, 1974 Untitled XXXVIII, XXXIX, XL - 2008
‘The obsessive love of Max and Lucia ultimately re-creates a concentration camp situation in which they are both victims. They experience paranoia because they are being pursued; they no longer go out; finally, hunger and lack of air make them regress to an animal level… The Night Porter depicts not only the political continuity between wartime Nazism and 1957 Austria, but also the psychological continuity of characters locked into compulsive repetition of the past.’ Annette Insdorf, The Night Porter, 2000 ‘The Night Porter argues that culture consoles itself in simplistic, “moral” readings of history. It subsequently attacks the concept of post-Holocaust redemption and issues related to the reassurances of redemptive logic with which culture has long kept itself warm… The film initiates a forceful dialogue that calls into question the tools that culture has long used to reconstruct and reconcile history.’ Graeme Krautheim, ‘Masquerades of Self-Erasure: Pornography and Corporeal Memory in Liliana Cavani’s The Night Porter’, 2007
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Asleep Inside You
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Untitled XLI - 2008
Untitled IX - 2008
The third novel, Captivité (‘Captivity’), for which Némirovsky left a bare plot outline, would have shown the coalescing of a resistance, with some characters introduced in Tempête en juin and Dolce now under arrest and under threat of death, in Paris. The fourth and fifth novels would perhaps have been called Batailles (‘Battles’) and La Paix (‘Peace’), but these exist only as titles in Némirovsky’s notebook, against which she had placed question marks. Nothing can be said about the storylines of Batailles and La Paix. To quote Némirovsky’s notes, they are ‘in limbo, and what limbo! It’s really in the lap of the gods since it depends on what happens.’ In July 1942, having just completed the first two of the series, Némirovsky was arrested as a Jew and detained at Pithiviers and then Auschwitz, where she died. Condensed description of Suite Française, five novels planned by Ukrainian-Jewish writer Irene Némirovsky, but never completed
Untitled VIII - 2008
We are carriers of shame. Most people don’t want to articulate it, but it is there in our minds and it emerges in extreme flashes.
// 147
Asleep Inside You
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Untitled XLII - 2008
She works from a screen grab from a documentary – a soldier in surrender moving through a landscape.
Untitled XLIII - 2008
Untitled XLIV - 2008
It’s the elephant in the room – that secret knowing that lives inside you.
Untitled XLV - 2008
‘Mogamat Benjamin has been in prison for 34 years and he has killed more people – mostly fellow inmates – than he can remember. He has beheaded and mutilated their corpses. He has – along with other members of his gang – cut out his victims’ hearts and eaten them in a grim semi-mystical ritual in which the life-force of the victim is supposed to pass into the bodies of the killers. Mogamat holds the rank of General in the gang known as the 28s. “I am powerful,” he told the BBC. “I am partly God. No man has a higher rank in Pollsmoor than me.”’ Alan Little, ‘Killers Don’t Cry’, BBC News – World Edition, Retrieved 27 May 2015
148 //
Asleep Inside You
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Untitled XLVI - 2008
The ash is still there – diffuse, veil-like.
Untitled XVIII - 2008
There is something violent about the gesture. It is one of those old defaced photographs where someone has blotted him/herself out of the image because he/she didn’t like the look of him/herself. There is this elegance or aristocracy about the pose of the group and yet it is as if this one figure has a bag over his/her head or has been decapitated.
Untitled XLVII - 2008
// 149
Asleep Inside You
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Untitled XIV - 2008
A Kiss Ho, we can share you in the back of the McLaren, I don’t give a fuck What your name is, I’ll call you Hottentot, Hopenbot How come your name is Sharon? Slow the flow down so I can make The same face when I’m shooting the guns is the same face I make when I fuck The back of my hand on your neck pressing your face against the sheets it’s insane You been changed, cause I’m out of this world, girl I got that new fame I’m at an all-time high with highness, I’m at an all-time fly with flyness And this is exactly what they say when they bow to your highness ‘I wanted a kiss, a kiss, a kiss I wanted a kiss, a kiss, a kiss I wanted a kiss, a kiss, a kiss I wanted a kiss, a kiss, a kiss’ Eminem & Royce da 5’9”, 2011
150 //
Adrift
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Dial Tone - 2010
‘We are experiencing higher than normal call volumes. Please be patient; your call will be answered. Due to high call volumes there may be a long delay in answering your call. We notice that you have not keyed in anything. To use our automated fault logging facility, please press one. We are experiencing higher than normal call volumes. Please be patient; your call will be answered. Due to high call volumes there may be a long delay in answering your call. We notice that you have not keyed in anything. To use our automated fault logging facility please press one. We are experiencing higher than normal call volumes. Please be patient; your call will be answered. Due to high call volumes there may be a long delay in answering your call. We notice that you have not keyed in anything. To use our automated fault logging facility please press one. We are experiencing higher than normal call volumes. Please be patient; your call will be answered.’ Telkom, automated answer
Belem (triptych) - 2010
At the time, everything had felt so urgent between them – a sense of their destinies being set in motion by each passing choice, each unfolding second. Should she jump in or remain remote on the riverbank? Every small private choice had its instant sensual outcomes. There was the heat of the voracious sun, drinking her up. There was the temperature of the water – warm on the surface, icy down below. There was the proximity of their near-naked bodies as they took turns diving off the jetty and swimming about in the lagoon together. It was so long ago though, it’s just a secret blur now – valium landscapes.
// 151
Black River Park
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Three Graces - 2010
‘We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors went together. We knew that the girls were our twins, that we all existed in space like animals with identical skins, and that they knew everything about us though we couldn’t fathom them at all. We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.’ Jeffrey Eugenides, Virgin Suicides, 1993
152 //
Black River Park
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Snake Girls - 2010
Never underestimate the intentions of a clique of bored teenage girls with unrequited crushes.
Bone by Bone - 2010
The young boy in the foreground has a dejected air about him. It is as if some bullying or rejection has transpired. He faces downwards, the delicate nape of his neck exposed and vulnerable. Two older boys look on. The copse of trees and the veld beyond the limits of the fenced in camping enclosure are dark and daunting – black, like the older boy’s Speedo and the interior of the camper van. A fourth figure casually enters the frame, wearing flip-flops.
Softly Fall - 2010
She destroys a lot of her paintings – works over them, uses the surface again. Completed works hover beneath the surface of some paintings. Sometimes, elements of the old paintings show through, like ghosts from a forgotten story. For a split second that could also be an eternity, a boy in his school uniform and socks is suspended in mid air above a trampoline. His playmates look on, waiting for their own moments of suspended glory. Vixen girl stands on the sidelines, watching over them in her grey woolen slacks and foxy boots, her elbow cocked against her hip. As she paints, she realises that another witness is present – a ghost from the previous painting is hovering in the murky ether, observing the scene from above. Is she smiling benignly, or is that a smirk?
// 153
//
MERRY HELL AND THE DREAMBODY
Merry Hell - 2010
Then there’s that mystical, unquantifiable aspect – the alchemy between the energetic bodies entangled in a relationship.
154 //
MERRY HELL AND THE DREAMBODY
//
Broken Scary series - 2010
She is drawn to the strange fused forms of Makonde wood carvings – figures, masks and household objects in which ancestors and living beings merge, animals and humans are one, alien and past cultures become part of the mental life of the present as the artist’s freedom of mind is unleashed into ebony. This excites her. What preternatural mischief is this? Perhaps she can channel a sense of this fertile mischief with the looseness of ink on paper. She goes with it, and almost instantly, the little inks start coming – diminutive monster-demon things doing tarantella dances on the flat white surface of the page. The series takes off from there, the little inky rascals insinuating themselves into the frame – a dragon tongue here, a quick burst of flame there. Soon though, the otherworldly shapes and figures are nothing more than linear traces in the greater scheme of the painting.
// 155
//
MERRY HELL AND THE DREAMBODY
Harlequin Mother - 2010
Am I a good enough mother? Am I holding on too hard? Am I ambivalent? Am I guilty of neglect? Am I? Struggling to maintain a cohesive identity amid the burdens of child rearing, she segues astonishingly quickly from flaming internal rage to unbounded adoration. And yet, even as she throws her everything into child rearing, she seems to have become so precariously dull.
Monster Love - 2010
In the mornings, she takes the baby to the park to give the mother some time alone. They play together in the sunshine. But sometimes the baby just cries and cries. She tries to calm her, but the child screams violently – kicking against her breasts and wailing loudly, despite her efforts to comfort and subdue. She sings to the child, but it continues to wail. As she rocks the screaming creature in her arms, she feels a quick rush of rage. She could drop the thing, let its head crack down on the paving stones, and be gone from here. She can feel its body hot against her arms and chest, but she herself is no longer in her body. She is no longer present in the park beneath the green trees. She cannot hear the screaming. It is dark and the cold morning air smells of coal fires and paraffin. As she leaves the crèche, her baby boy cries and cries. She kisses his hot forehead and pulls him in against her one last time, and then she is gone. There is nothing else to be done. She must steel herself and walk away. She must not be late for work. The other baby is waiting for her there, waiting to drink her time and eat her life.
156 //
Is This the Place?
//
Interior, Yesterday, Now - 2013
It begins with the discovery of a book. Covered in beige cloth and embossed with red letters, it is an elegant enough object, but seems fairly innocuous at first. Its contents will have a hold on her for the passage of a year, governing what she has chosen to do with her days. It is a book of Bauhausinspired mid-century modern houses – utopian fantasies of middle-class suburban bliss. Atomised. Depopulated. Sans the familial fallout. Geometries of pure possibility awaiting habitation. Interior: Slasto - 2012
She looks at the Case Study Houses, which were built in America between 1945 and 1966 as experiments in residential architecture. Major architects, including Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano, Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig, Eero Saarinen and Ralph Rapson, were commissioned to design and build model homes for the housing boom caused by the return of millions of American soldiers after World War II. Not all of the designs were built, but most of those that were were built in Los Angeles – one in Phoenix, Arizona. The notion travelled far more widely though – the idea that architecture can enhance your world, create freedom, give you the perfect life. Interior - 2012
Fashion designer Tom Ford, as a first-time director, financed the film himself. The film places emphasis on the culture of the 1960s; the production design is by the same team that designed AMC television’s Mad Men, which is set in the same era. Mad Men star Jon Hamm has an uncredited voice cameo as George’s lover’s cousin. The actual house where the character George lives in the film was designed in 1938 by John Lautner, his first house after leaving Frank Lloyd Wright’s apprenticeship programme to establish his own practice in Los Angeles. Lautner’s work in Southern California combined progressive engineering with humane design and dramatic space-age flair. Corrected and appended excerpt from slightly inaccurate Wikipedia entry on ‘A Single Man’, the 2009 drama film based on Christopher Isherwood’s novel of the same name, Retrieved 27 May 2015 Interior: Willow - 2012
She starts to occupy these brut structures, feeling out the seductions and restrictions of their internal spaces, exploring empty rooms in which surrogate chairs and tables hint at scenes that might have unfolded here. In fact, it is difficult to discern a tense. Has the action already happened or is it about to occur? // 157
Is This the Place?
//
Accra Showground - 2013
Newlands Pool - 2012
Werdmuller Centre - 2012
‘The place for people: You’ve never had somewhere quite like Werdmuller Centre to make shopping a pleasure instead of a chore. ‘Come and experience its unique design, which gives new and exciting meaning to the term “window shopping”. ‘Come and find the kind of quality and price that suits your pocket – for Werdmuller Centre has 49 speciality shops covering an extensive range of goods, from fashion to foods to flowers and more. ‘Come and find out why we say, “You won’t want to go home when you do your shopping at Werdmuller Centre. ‘Werdmuller Centre: The place for people.’ Werdmuller Centre, advertisement, Cape Times , 1975
158 //
Is This the Place?
//
Interior: Float glass - 2013
At first, she paints quite consciously with a sober fidelity to the architecture. The scale is compact. She is in control of her materials. But as the months pass, the emptiness of the rooms takes hold of her, unlocking old patterns laid down, like code, inside of her. And suddenly, it is nothing more, nothing less, than impure geometry – shapes unleashed.
// 159
Is This the Place?
//
Red Interior - 2012
Cocaine lines and Venetian blinds… [Almost instantly] she is a poet – and she didn’t even know it.
Hotel Bedroom - 2013
160 //
MALICE AFORETHOUGHT
//
Girl with Dahlias - 2013
She works from an archive of found photographs, none of them her own. But there is always a sense of familiarity – a strange proximity to the sets of relations at play within the confines of these hyper-nuclear families. This girl could be her cousin, Julia, who now lives in New Zealand.
Boy with Sausage Dog - 2013
How are we attached? How are you holding me? Are you strangling me or loving me? The questions keep coming to her as she makes these works. She wants to look at family life, its richness and abundance, but also at the hellish nature of those primary relationships, and the fear and anxiety that holds them together.
Girl Holding a Cat - 2013
Perpetual dream state: she is always thirteen. Her first cat, Minky, is still alive and in her arms –fur still warm from sunning herself on the Slasto in the sunshine.
Boy in the Sun - 2013
He can no longer tell the difference between his own memories and the occasional Kodak moment – everything is backlit by the sunshine glare of the 1970s – part hazy nostalgia, part dazzling lens flare. Riff on stolen text fragment from Clare Marie Healy’s ‘Deconstructing the fashion of The Virgin Suicides’, Dazed, Retrieved 23 May 2015
// 161
MALICE AFORETHOUGHT
//
Poolside - 2013
They were as white, straight, and middle-class as the next family on their white, straight, middle-class street. Well, on the strained surface of things, at least‌
Mother and Baby - 2013
There are so few paintings of mothers and babies that explore the ambivalence of motherhood – the proximities and resentments of being a mother, what it is like to have post-natal depression and not want to hold your baby... She will remedy that.
Suburban Street - 2013
That is what she will do. She will populate these canvases with all the achingly banal details of her sustained suburban universe.
162 //
MALICE AFORETHOUGHT
//
Sunday Morning - 2013
‘You better stop, look around. Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes. Here comes your nineteenth nervous breakdown.’ Rolling Stones, ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’ [chorus], 1966
Fishbowl - 2013
‘How I wish, how I wish you were here. We’re just two lost souls Swimming in a fish bowl, Year after year, Running over the same old ground. What have we found? The same old fears. Wish you were here.’ ‘Wish You Were Here’, Pink Floyd (Roger Waters, David Gilmour), 1975
Mystery Couple - 2012
It is dizzying; the intimacies that can transpire between strangers. At times it feels necessary to establish some distance – focus on the mechanics of reproduction. Her gaze becomes forensic. She studies the photograph, looking for its imperfections, its technical failures. As a painter, it is excites her to find the fault lines – the places in the photograph where the image has broken down, becoming something other than technically sound mimesis. It becomes important somehow to reproduce the glitch – maximise the instance of interference that has visually disrupted the transmission of the moment across time. Her starting point is the record rather than the moment. She flattens out the background oranges and the black tones of the man’s suit so that they become a flat pattern – evidence of fallout from the dimensionality of the real.
// 163
MALICE AFORETHOUGHT
//
Fireflies - 2013
Homesick for the Seventies? How sick is that.
Camper - 2013
She is working from slides now; wants to capture the effects of this gone medium in paint – that peculiar ephemerality of the processed moment, warm flesh tones and golden Kodak sun-tones usurped by a melancholic blue-turquoise wash.
Pool - 2013
One day she notices a familiar shape coming through in an otherwise abstract painting with a rough, almost sketchbook quality about it. An off-kilter ovoid loosely depicting a swimming pool, the shape triggers in her an instance of déjà vu. She steps back from the canvas to survey the paintings now all about her in the studio, seeking in their surfaces the same liquid sphere of fullness. At first, she cannot locate it. She sees only flatness and voids. But then she recognises it in the form of a tabletop in a small black-and-white interior. She finds it again in a UFO hovering in the dystopian ether. And in that shape repeating itself through her, she realises that these paintings are starting to make a strange kind of sense. Between them and among them a narrative of sorts is emerging.
Dogs - 2013
164 //
MALICE AFORETHOUGHT
//
Away - 2012
Open Door - 2013
She steps back from the canvas to orient herself, reasserting her omniscience, convincing herself of her innate capacity for criticality – her ability to step outside of the picture. But as the months go by, her fictions dilate. She grows looser with her mark-making, layering over dead-end detours, allowing herself to make the necessary mistakes. The canvases grow larger and she upscales her brushes, painting wet into wet, as if in a trance. Abstract shapes compete for prominence with half-remembered characters caught up in a succession of life-changing moments; goodbyes at airports, camping trips, financial/familial crises – the unpredictable shards of narrative that constitute an inner life. She is painting ecstatically now. Freely giving herself over to the force of it.
// 165
EVERYTHING YOU WANT
//
Summertime - 2015
A teenage girl is lying in the grass with a cup of tea. It is spring and she has entered the mysterious time of her sexual awakening. She is beautiful and all things are possible now. Tread carefully. She is capable of anything.
166 //
EVERYTHING YOU WANT
//
Everything You Want - 2013
There is no disinterested omniscience or detachment from the subject. No position of ethical or economic purity either. We are all corrupt; irrevocably compromised. As an artist, she is not exempt from the game – far from it. Like everyone else, she is caught up in a transactional system that benefits the collectors, the trustees, the corporations... So much contemporary work makes high-minded political critiques without taking into account the corrupt and corrupting conditions of its own production. So why not give them what they want – lashings of it? She will paint a swimming pool, a girl, palm trees… It will be a confession of a kind, a veiled declaration of complicity in the whole trashy B-grade condition of things
The Robinson Family - 2013
Perhaps they will start to see the irony now.
Two Men at a Bar - 2013
// 167
EVERYTHING YOU WANT
//
Holiday Inn - 2015
If swimming pools were the epitome of the southern hemisphere lifestyle phenomenon, Holiday Inn was the multinational symbol of middle-class American leisure culture thriving in sunny South Africa.
Young and Beautiful - 2013
It’s Sunday at sunset and they’re still tripping on E, listening to Café del Mar and acting like they’re in Ibiza and its 1999, but it’s Troyeville really, and they’ve all got work tomorrow.
Maputo Swimming Pool - 2012
Bring it on, baby. Bring It On.
168 //
WAR OF LOVE
//
War of Love I - 2013
‘They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible. But it is never easy. They had just sat down to supper in a tiny sitting room on the first floor of a Georgian inn… Their wedding, at St. Mary’s, Oxford, had gone well; the service decorous, the reception jolly, the send-off from school and college friends raucous and uplifting… The couple had driven away in a small car belonging to Florence’s mother and arrived in the early evening at their hotel on the Dorset coast in weather that was not perfect for mid-July or the circumstances, but entirely adequate: it was not raining, but nor was it quite warm enough, according to Florence, to eat outside on the terrace as they hoped. Edward thought it was, but, polite to a fault, he would not think of contradicting her on such an evening… Two youths in dinner jackets served them from a trolley parked outside in the corridor and their comings and goings through what was generally known as the honeymoon suite, made the waxed oak boards squeak comically against the silence.’ Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach, 2007
I Could Kill You - 2013
It’s like reincarnation – characters from previous paintings being reborn into a later series, recycled from painting to painting, lifetime to lifetime.
Cornered - 2014
The two of them had thought that they were entirely alone in the house, free to inhabit the possibilities of their imagination with complete abandon. She had become a little white kitten and he a bank robber about to take everyone in the building hostage. She was meowing plaintively as he wielded his weapon and yelled violent threats across the banking hall. That’s when her mother stepped into the room. At first, she just stood there mutely, holding the plate of peanut butter and jam sandwiches with a slightly stunned expression on her face. Then she scolded them fiercely and declared that that was enough playing for the afternoon and that they would be eating their sandwiches at the kitchen table. As they trailed awkwardly behind her mother to the kitchen, she felt guilty and ashamed, but she did not know why.
// 169
WAR OF LOVE
//
Vestige - 2015
The longer you look at them, the more real they become – lovers in a grove. As their forms emerge from the gossamer surface, the forest slowly gathers depth. The Way Through the Woods They shut the road through the woods Seventy years ago. Weather and rain have undone it again, And now you would never know There was once a road through the woods Before they planted the trees. It is underneath the coppice and heath, And the thin anemones. Only the keeper sees That, where the ring-dove broods, And the badgers roll at ease, There was once a road through the woods. Yet, if you enter the woods Of a summer evening late, When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools Where the otter whistles his mate. (They fear not men in the woods, Because they see so few) You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet, And the swish of a skirt in the dew, Steadily cantering through The misty solitudes, As though they perfectly knew The old lost road through the woods… But there is no road through the woods.’
Rudyard Kipling, 1910
170 //
Savage Nature
//
The Collectors I - 2013
These are people you know. Maybe people like you.
Colonial Mentality I - 2014
There she is again – the woman in the white dress. She recurs like a symptom.
Colonial Mentality II - 2013
‘If you are blind, describing an elephant is easy. You can call it, like one of the six blind men in the fable, a huge tree trunk; or perhaps a gigantic fan; or an enormous rope, and so on. But having eyes, far from making such descriptions easy, actually complicates them.’ Chinua Achebe, The Education of a British Protected Child, 2009
// 171
Savage Nature
//
The Collectors II - 2013
Oh, it was all terribly Wah Wah, darling – a dwindling colonial society eating up on itself. Parties at the tennis club or on the croquet lawns where everyone got a bit too smashed and then it was Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight. Oh, fuck no, don’t let’s do that. Oh fuck, let’s.
Hunter - 2014
‘After celebrity activists and aid workers, conservationists are Africa’s most important people. Do not offend them. You need them to invite you to their 30,000-acre game ranch or ‘conservation area’, and this is the only way you will get to interview the celebrity activist. Often a book cover with a heroic-looking conservationist on it works magic for sales. Anybody white, tanned and wearing khaki who once had a pet antelope or a farm is a conservationist, one who is preserving Africa’s rich heritage. When interviewing him or her, do not ask how much funding they have; do not ask how much money they make off their game. Never ask how much they pay their employees.’ Binyavanga Wainaina, ‘How to Write about Africa’, Granta 92: The View from Africa, 2008
Bushveld - 2014
‘Bushveld Minerals Limited is an AIM-listed company exploring and developing iron ore and tin projects on the Bushveld Complex in South Africa. The company targets projects with potential for scale and favourable cost-curve positioning in well-understood geographies. The vision is to open a new frontier in iron ore mining and processing based on the Bushveld Complex in South Africa. The company’s flagship is the Bushveld Iron Ore Project, which has a JORC-compliant titanomagnetite resource of 740 million tonnes and the potential to grow it to more than one billion tonnes. It is an exciting open-castable multi-commodity resource that has the potential to support more than 10 million tonnes production per annum.’ Proactive Investors, Australia, Retrieved 31 May 2015
172 //
Savage Nature
//
The Inquisitors - 2014
So what do we have here? Now that we have it, let’s test it and stretch it until it snaps. Let’s prod it and push it to its limits to see what it is made of. Then we can give it a name. And taunt it with the violence of that sound. Is that how the story goes? Is it even a story – or just a wordless thrust?
Red Landscape - 2014
Somewhere in a cruel landscape of hooks and horns, he is blithely skinning a snake.
// 173
Savage Nature
//
The Pines I - 2014
phantasm |ˈfantazəm| noun literary a figment of the imagination; an illusion or apparition: the cart seemed to glide like a terrible phantasm. • archaic an illusory likeness of something: every phantasm of a hope was quickly nullified. Oxford Dictionaries online, Retreived 31 May 2015
174 //
DELIRIUM
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Sunken Dream - 2015
Words that rhyme with deflate: abate, ablate, aerate, ait, await, backdate, bait, bate, berate, castrate, collate, conflate, crate, create, cremate, date, dictate, dilate, distraite, donate, downstate, eight, elate, equate, estate, fate, fête, fixate, freight, frustrate, gait, gate, gestate, gradate, grate, great, gyrate, hate, hydrate, inflate, innate, interrelate, interstate, irate, Kate, Kuwait, lactate, late, locate, lustrate, mandate, mate, migrate, misdate, misstate, mistranslate, mutate, narrate, negate, notate, orate, ornate, Pate, placate, plate, prate, prorate, prostrate, pulsate, pupate, quadrate, rate, rotate, sate, sedate, serrate, short weight, skate, slate, spate, spectate, spruit, stagnate, state, straight, strait, Tate, tête-à-tête, Thwaite, translate, translocate, transmigrate, truncate, underrate, understate, underweight, update, uprate, upstate, up-to-date, vacate, vibrate, wait, weight Oxford Dictionaries online, Retrieved 31 May 2015
Ragged Woods - 2013
Who is the girl leaning on the open door of the station wagon? She is every girl in a bikini. Trance music pulses through the wintry forest. Her longing is everywhere; even the sap in the trees is straining with her desire. She is feeling sexually adventurous and fundamentally insecure.
Fair Play - 2015
Oh yes, she is that girl too; the one with the bunny tail, singing for her supper – ass on the line. She circulates with hard-won ease, deliriously fuckable.
// 175
GHOST ALBUM
//
Four Horsemen - 2015
‘The chequer board pattern of geometrical shapes, squares, diamonds, lozenges and so on, used for example for draughts, chess and the game of goose, is a figure of the visible world, woven from light and darkness, in which the balance is maintained as yin follows yang. In its basic form, the chequer board is the simple square mandala, the symbol of Shiva the transformer, the equivalent also to the Chinese yin-yang… Symbolising the opposing powers which battle against one another in a life-death struggle within both the universe and the human individual, its pattern is especially suitable for a board-game. It encapsulates the conflict situation. The arrangement of squares is a signal that battle is about to commence. That battle may be between reason and instinct, design and chance, of one set of factions against another, or of the different potentialities of a single life. The chequer board thus symbolizes the arena in which such conflicts and battles take place.’ Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant (translated by John Buchanan-Brown), The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols, 1996
Young Death on a Horse - 2014
This too could be a kind of personal romance.
Riders - 2014
Riders on the Storm ‘Riders on the storm Riders on the storm Into this house we’re born Into this world we’re thrown Like a dog without a bone An actor out on loan Riders on the storm’ Excerpt from ‘Riders on the Storm’, LA Woman, The Doors, 1971
176 //
GHOST ALBUM
//
Wilderness - 2014
Many cultures have so-called ‘white ladies’ or female ghosts in their mythology. Often regarded as the ghost of a deceased female ancestor, a white lady (also known as the Mulher de Branco) is a spectral female figure most often seen in rural areas and associated with a local legend of tragedy. Condensed and appended excerpt from ‘The Scariest and Most Famous Female Ghosts’, Bizarre Bytes, Last retrieved 31 May 2015 It is written on the photograph – ‘Wilderness’. She takes it both literally and figuratively. It is a small black and white image from the early 20th century of two female figures on a boat. As she paints, the foliage morphs into lurking phanstasmal shapes. The rumour of a face emerges from the shadowy bulrushes. The vegetation takes on the feel of a headdress or a mask. It is as if these women are on a psychic voyage into another world.
Lagoon - 2014
Here they are again – the two women on the lagoon. They have definitely entered the wilderness now.
Sea Ablaze - 2015
‘If your work is to be true, and not a vapid parlour game, and if your work is trying to shine light in the human psyche’s deepest, darkest, illest places, then you have to go there, and be it, and that’s no casual undertaking.’ David Mitchell (Interviewed by Adam Begley), ‘The Art of Fiction No. 204’, The Paris Review No 193, Summer 2010
// 177
INFINITE LOOP
//
Mother - 2013
Lying here, she owns loss Is waiting for a leave taking, a disappearance Thinks of mother incarnate, Mother gone, long gone, beyond eternal return And yet, this pattern etched into her breath’s rhythm She longs for her bedtime story The tale that best inhabits the diminishing, the retreat, the silence, the anger And there is darkness, space, and the insinuating eternity of breath, ether, lungs Airy substance confirming sound, space Nothing more than that Nothing more real than flying fish and shadows
178 //
INFINITE LOOP
//
Last Round - 2015
She found the box of photographs in 2009, and has had this image ever since then – a group of skeletons sitting casually around a table with a bottle of wine, contemplating their next move. She knows them well. The image of the baby is from the same box. From a thousand images, she pulled out a selection of ten, and over the years they have gathered their stories, become familiar. For a long time, they have belonged together in her imagination – sitting, waiting… Until this moment, she hasn’t been able to work with them, but now she is ready. Now is the time.
Infant - 2015
If this is about the cycle of life, then surely she must paint a beginning.
Dawn, Exit - 2015
Here is a figure with doves. He is the bird keeper. There is a coop and some slightly broken trees. It feels like an exit painting.
Baggy Creeps - 2015
When she stands back to look at what is there, she observes a kind of muted entropy at work in the painting. The scene from the discarded photograph has been duly retrieved. Four boys are running sack races in an abandoned lot – staying out of trouble for the duration of an afternoon. The mood of the lost moment has been transmitted. But the documentary is dissipating, their shapes morphing as if they were chemical matter – crystal substance inside a pupa or a cocoon. These long-gone boys appear not yet hatched. She is trying to locate the cycle in a moment – how we move from birth to death and vice versa. // 179
INFINITE LOOP
//
Oh, Green World - 2015
As the painting develops, its meaning shifts and changes. At first, she is focused on the gathering itself, the insouciance of the figures lolling sensuously about on the green green arcadian field. But then she notices the shape that their bodies form within the frame and she sees that it is a clock face and now she knows that these new paintings are about time – the golden light that passes in a flash and is all the more lush and splendid for it. There is something in that gold-green colour. Something splendid and regal – archaic… It calls to mind a painting by Hieronymous Bosch. And there it is in The Garden of Earthly Delights – her golden green and her peculiar off-key pink.
Milk Teeth - 2015
The characters and scenes seem to be travelling to her across time – finding their way to her.
Field of the Cloth of Gold - 2015
Think anew. Open the field of vision to new territory. Bring it all in. Bring it all into your heart. Feel the promise of rebirth.
180 //
LIST OF PAINTINGS
//
OPENING SECTION Pg no. i Pg no. 01
Four Horsemen | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 130 x 220 cm Open Road | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 68 x 90 cm
Infinite Loop Pg no. 06 Pg no. 08 Pg no. 09 Pg no. 10 Pg no. 12 Pg no. 13 Pg no. 14 Pg no. 16 Pg no. 18
Baggy Creeps | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 85 x 120 cm Field of the Cloth of Gold | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 115 x 160 cm Infant | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 90 x 68 cm Skeletons | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 90 x 68 cm Milk Teeth | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 130 x 220 cm Dawn, exit | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 90 x 90 cm Shadow Baby | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 90 x 90 cm Clickety - Clack | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 115 x 160 cm Oh, Green World | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 130 x 220 cm
Ghost Album Pg no. 20 Pg no. 21 Pg no. 21 Pg no. 22 Pg no. 23 Pg no. 26 Pg no. 27
Young Death on a Horse | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 145 x 102 cm Gateway | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 40 cm Riders | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 45 x 55 cm Mother | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 50 x 40cm New Territory | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 135 x 205 cm Zeitgeist | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 135 x 205 cm Sea Ablaze | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 135 x 205 cm
Fair Play | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 84 x 120 cm Little Birds | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 50 x 40 cm Ragged Woods | 2013 | Oil on canvas | 120 x 85 cm Merry-Go-Round | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 130 x 150 cm Pink Haze | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 102 x 150 cm Interior: Monkeyboy | 2013 | Oil on canvas | 62 x 84 cm
Savage Nature Pg no. 40 Pg no. 41 Pg no. 42 Pg no. 44 Pg no. 46 Pg no. 47 Pg no. 50
Squirrel | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 50 x 40 cm The Collectors I | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 68 x 90 cm Hunter | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 68 x 105 cm The Collectors II | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 85 x 120 cm Colonial Mentality I | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 78 x 80 cm The Inquisitors | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 120 x 150 cm Red Landscape | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 115 x 150 cm
The War of Love Pg no. 52 Pg no. 53 Pg no. 54 Pg no. 56
War of Love II | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 77 x 80 cm Cornered | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 90 x 68 cm I Could Kill You | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 65 x 45 cm Vestige | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 115 x 160 cm
Everything You Want Pg no. 58 Pg no. 60 Pg no. 61 Pg no. 64 Pg no. 65 Pg no. 66
Airport | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 105 x 105 cm Everything You Want | 2013 / 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 84 x 120 cm Holiday Inn | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 115 x 150 cm Maputo Swimming Pool | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 84 x 120 cm Swimming Pool | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 84 x 120 cm Getting Dark 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 85 x 120 cm
Malice Aforethought Pg no. 68 Pg no. 69 Pg no. 70 Pg no. 71 Pg no. 74 Pg no. 76 Pg no. 78 Pg no. 79 Pg no. 82 Pg no. 83 Pg no. 84
Suburban Street | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 68 x 90 cm Girl with Dahlias | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 77 x 80 cm Boy with Sausage Dog | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 78 x 80 cm Sunday Morning | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 85 x 120 cm Boy in the Sun | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 105 x 105 cm Auction Lot | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 77 x 80 cm Black Feathers | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 77 x 80 cm Mystery Couple | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 80 x 77 cm Open Door | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 130 x 150 cm Pool | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 62 x 84 cm Camper | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 84 x 120 cm
Is This The Place? Pg no. 86
// 181
Interior: Willow | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 61 x 84 cm Interior | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 61 x 84 cm Interior: Johannesburg | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 61 x 84 cm Interior: Bulawayo | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 61 x 84 cm Petty Crime I | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 40 cm Petty Crime II | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 40 cm Petty Crime III | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 40 cm
Pg no. 93 Pg no. 94 Pg no. 94 Pg no. 94 Pg no. 94 Pg no. 96 Pg no. 98 Pg no. 99
Petty Crime IV | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 40 cm Petty Crime V | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 40 cm Petty Crime VI | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 40 cm Petty Crime VII | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 40 cm Petty Crime VIII | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 40 cm Red Interior | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 69 x 105 cm Landscape Fold | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 130 x 150 cm Interior: Float Glass | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 130 x 150 cm
Merry Hell And The Dreambody
Delirium Pg no. 30 Pg no. 31 Pg no. 32 Pg no. 34 Pg no. 36 Pg no. 37
Pg no. 88 Pg no. 90 Pg no. 91 Pg no. 92 Pg no. 93 Pg no. 93 Pg no. 93
Interior, Yesterday, Now | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 130 x 150 cm
Pg no. 102 Pg no. 104 Pg no. 105 Pg no. 106 Pg no. 108
Serpent | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 120 x 84 cm Harlequin Mother | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 93 x 130 cm Babies | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 69 x 105 cm Monster Love | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 84 x 61 cm Wolves | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 90 x 130 cm
Black River Park Pg no. 110 Pg no. 112 Pg no. 114 Pg no. 115
Three Graces | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 69 x 105 cm Men at a Pool | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 69 x 105 cm Bone by Bone | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 61 x 84 cm Soflty Fall | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 69 x 105 cm
Adrift Pg no. 118 Pg no. 119 Pg no. 122
Dial Tone | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 40 x 30 cm Belem | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 40 x 40 cm each (triptych) Shapeshifters | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 84 x 56 cm
Asleep Inside You Pg no. 124 Pg no. 125 Pg no. 125 Pg no. 126 Pg no. 126 Pg no. 126 Pg no. 126 Pg no. 127 Pg no. 128 Pg no. 129 Pg no. 129 Pg no. 129 Pg no. 130 Pg no. 130 Pg no. 130 Pg no. 131 Pg no. 131 Pg no. 132 Pg no. 133 Pg no. 133 Pg no. 134 Pg no. 134 Pg no. 134
Untitled I | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 50 x 40 cm Untitled II | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 22 cm Untitled III | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 25 x 35 cm Untitled IV | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 22 x 30 cm Untitled V | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 45 x 35 cm Untitled VI | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 22 cm Untitled VII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 22 x 30 cm Untitled VIII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 22 x 30 cm Untitled IX | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 40 x 50 cm Untitled X | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 35 x 25 cm Untitled XI | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas |35 x 45 cm Untitled XII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 40 cm Untitled XIII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 22 cm Untitled XIV | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 25 x 35 cm Untitled XV | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 35 x 45 cm Untitled XVI | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 41 x 30 cm Untitled XVII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 40 x 30 cm Untitled XVIII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 40 x 50 cm Untitled XIX | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 35 x 25 cm Untitled XX | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 34 x 45 cm Untitled XXI | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 40 cm Untitled XXII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 22 cm Untitled XXIII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 22 x 30 cm
Commentary Pg no. 136
Untitled XXIV | 2007 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 100 x 100 cm
Little Deaths Pg no. 137 Pg no. 137 Pg no. 137 Pg no. 137 Pg no. 138 Pg no. 138 Pg no. 139 Pg no. 139 Pg no. 139
Untitled I | 2007 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 100 x 130 cm Untitled II | 2007 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 40 x 40 cm Untitled III | 2007 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 40 x 40 cm Untitled IV | 2007 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 100 x 130 cm Untitled V | 2007 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 100 x 100 cm Untitled VI | 2007 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 100 x 130 cm Untitled VII | 2007 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 90 x 147 cm Untitled VIII | 2007 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 40 x 40 cm Untitled IX | 2007 | and Ash on Canvas | 100 x 130 cm
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Pg no. 140 Pg no. 140
Untitled X | 2007 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 100 x 100 cm Untitled XI | 2007 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 100 x 130 cm
Asleep Inside You Pg no. 141 Pg no. 141 Pg no. 141 Pg no. 141 Pg no. 142 Pg no. 143 Pg no. 143 Pg no. 143 Pg no. 143 Pg no. 143 Pg no. 144 Pg no. 144 Pg no. 144 Pg no. 144 Pg no. 145 Pg no. 145 Pg no. 145 Pg no. 145 Pg no. 145 Pg no. 146 Pg no. 146 Pg no. 146 Pg no. 146 Pg no. 146 Pg no. 147 Pg no. 147 Pg no. 147 Pg no. 148 Pg no. 148 Pg no. 148 Pg no. 148 Pg no. 149 Pg no. 149 Pg no. 149 Pg no. 150
Untitled XXV | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 22 cm Untitled XXVI | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 40 x 50 cm Untitled XXVII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 40 x 30 cm Untitled XXVIII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 40 x 30 cm Untitled XXIX | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 40 x 50 cm Untitled XXX | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 40 cm Untitled XII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 40 cm Untitled XXXI | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 22 cm Untitled XV | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 35 x 45 cm Untitled XXXII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 22 cm Untitled XXXIII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 25 x 35 cm Untitled XXXIV | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 25 x 35 cm Untitled IV | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 22 x 30 cm Untitled XIII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 22 cm Untitled II | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 22 cm Untitled III | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 25 x 35 cm Untitled XXXV | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 25 x 35 cm Untitled VII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 22 x 30 cm Untitled V | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 25 x 35 cm Untitled XXXVI | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 35 x 45 cm Untitled XXXVII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 35 x 25 cm Untitled XXXVIII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 35 x 25 cm Untitled XXXIX | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 22 cmv Untitled XL | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 35 x 25 cm Untitled XLI | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 25 x 35 cm Untitled IX | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 40 x 50 cm Untitled VIII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 22 x 30 cm Untitled XLII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 22 cm Untitled XLIII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 35 x 45 cm Untitled XLIV | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 22 cm Untitled XLV | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas |40 x 50 cm Untitled XLVI | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 40 x 30 cm Untitled XVIII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 40 x 50 cm Untitled XLVII | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 22 cm Untitled XIV | 2008 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 25 x 35 cm
Pg no. 162 Pg no. 162 Pg no. 162 Pg no. 163 Pg no. 163 Pg no. 163 Pg no. 164 Pg no. 164 Pg no. 164 Pg no. 164 Pg no. 165 Pg no. 165 Everything You Want Pg no. 166 Pg no. 167 Pg no. 167 Pg no. 167 Pg no. 168 Pg no. 168 Pg no. 168
Dial Tone | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 40 x 30 cm Belem | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 40 x 40 cm each (triptych)
Black River Park Pg no. 152 Pg no. 153 Pg no. 153 Pg no. 153
Three Graces | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 79 x 105 cm Snake Girls | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 61 x 84 cm Bone by Bone | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 61 x 84 cm Soflty Fall | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 69 x 105 cm
Merry Hell And The Dreambody Pg no. 154 Pg no. 155 Pg no. 156 Pg no. 156
Merry Hell | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 92 x 130 cm Broken Scary series | 2010 | Ink on Paper | Dimensions Variable Harlequin Mother | 2010 | oil on Canvas | 93 x 130 cm Monster Love | 2010 | Oil on Canvas | 84 x 61 cm
Is This The Place? Pg no. 157 Pg no. 157 Pg no. 157 Pg no. 157 Pg no. 158 Pg no. 158 Pg no. 158 Pg no. 159 Pg no. 160 Pg no. 160
Interior, Yesterday, Now | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 130 x 150 cm Interior: Slasto | 2012 | Oil and Ash on Canvas | 30 x 40 cm Interior | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 61 x 84 cm Interior: Willow | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 61 x 84 cm Accra Showground | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 61 x 84 cm Newlands Pool | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 36 x 46 cm Werdmuller Centre | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 35 x 45 cm Interior: Float Glass | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 130 x 150 cm Red Interior | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 69 x 105 cm Hotel Bedroom | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 54 x 40 cm
Summertime | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 85 x 120 cm Everything You Want | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 84 x 120 cm The Robinson Family | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 130 x 150 cm Two Men at a Bar | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 77 x 80 cm Holiday Inn | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 115 x 150 cm Young and Beautiful | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 85 x 120 cm Maputo Swimming Pool | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 84 x 120 cm
War of Love Pg no. 169 Pg no. 169 Pg no. 169 Pg no. 170
War of Love I | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 77 x 80.5 cm I Could Kill You | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 65 x 45 cm Cornered | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 90 x 68 cm Vestige | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 160 x 115 cm
Savage Nature Pg no. 171 Pg no. 171 Pg no. 171 Pg no. 172 Pg no. 172 Pg no. 172 Pg no. 173 Pg no. 173 Pg no. 174
Adrift Pg no. 151 Pg no. 151
Poolside | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 80 x 77 cm Mother and Baby | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 80 x 77 cm Suburban Street | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 68 x 90 cm Sunday Morning | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 85 x 120 cm Fishbowl | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 40 x 50 cm Mystery Couple | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 80 x 77 cm Fireflies | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 61 x 84 cm Camper | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 84 x 120 cm Pool | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 62 x 84 cm Dogs | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 78 x 80 cm Away | 2012 | Oil on Canvas | 56 x 140 cm Open Door | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 130 x 150 cm
The Collectors I | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 68 x 90 cm Colonial Mentality I | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 78 x 80 cm Colonial Mentality II | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 85 x 120 cm The Collectors II | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 62 x 84 cm Hunter | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 68 x 105 cm Bushveld | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 102 x 150 cm The Inquisitors | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 120 x 150 cm Red Landscape | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 115 x 150 cm The Pines I | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 78 x 80 cm
Ghost Album Pg no. 175 Pg no. 175 Pg no. 175 Pg no. 176 Pg no. 176 Pg no. 176
Sunken Dream | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 68 x 90.5 cm Ragged Woods | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 84 x 120 cm Fair Play | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 84 x 120 cm Four Horsemen | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 130 x 220 cm Young Death on a Horse | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 145 x 102 cm Riders | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 45 x 55 cm
Infinite Loop Pg no. 177 Pg no. 177 Pg no. 177 Pg no. 178
Wilderness | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 102 x 150 cm Lagoon | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 84 x 120 cm Sea Ablaze | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 135 x 205 cm Mother| 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 40 x 50 cm
Infite Loop Pg no. 179 Pg no. 179 Pg no. 179 Pg no. 179 Pg no. 180 Pg no. 181 Pg no. 181 Pg no. 183
Last Round | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 120 x 85 cm Infant | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 90 x 68 cm Dawn, Exit | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 90 x 90 cm Baggy Creeps | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 85 x 120 cm Oh, Green World | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 130 x 220 cm Milk Teeth | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 130 x 220 cm Field of the Cloth of Gold | 2015 | Oil on Canvas | 115 x 160 cm Behind the Door | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 68 x 90 cm
CLOSING SECTION Pg no. 192
Fish Shop | 2014 | Oil on Canvas | 77 x 80 cm
Malice Aforethought Pg no. 161 Pg no. 161 Pg no. 161 Pg no. 161
Girl with Dahlias | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 78 x 80 cm Boy with Sausage Dog | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 78 x 80 cm Girl Holding a Cat | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 68 x 90 cm Boy in the Sun | 2013 | Oil on Canvas | 105 x 105 cm
182 //
Behind the Door - 2014
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KATE GOTTGENS - BIOGRAPHY
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Born 1965, Durban, South Africa Lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. EDUCATION
1987 //
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2015 //
The Rising Sea, NUNC, Antwerp, Belguim
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Infinite Loop, SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2014 //
Savage Nature, Espacio Liquido, Gijon, Spain
2013 //
MALICE Aforethought, SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 //
Merry Hell and the Dreambody, João Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2009 //
Asleep Inside You, João Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2007 //
Little Deaths, UCT Irma Stern Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
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PAPERWORK: An Exhibition of Contemporary South African Works on Paper, SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2004 //
Groundwork, Knysna Fine Art, Knysna, South Africa
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This is Happening Now, Creative, Edinburgh International Fashion Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland
2000 //
Symbols of the Self, UCT Irma Stern Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
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Imago Mundi, Museo Bilotti, Rome, Italy
1993 //
Modern Wonders, Everard Read Contemporary Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
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Imago Mundi, Ca’ dei Carraresi, Treviso, Italy
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MiArt, SMAC Gallery, Milan, Italy
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2015 //
FNB Joburg Art Fair, SMAC Gallery, Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa
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Cape Town Art Fair, SMAC Gallery, The Avenue, Cape Town, South Africa
2014 //
100 Painters of Tomorrow, One Art Space, New York, USA
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In Search of Imaginary World, NUNC Contemporary – Antwerp, Belgium
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FNB Joburg Art Fair, SMAC Gallery, Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa
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SCOPE FAIR, NUNC Contemporary – Antwerp, Miami Beach, USA
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PAN Amsterdam, NUNC Contemporary – Antwerp, Amsterdam, Netherlands
// Cape Town Art Fair, The Pavillion, Cape Town, South Africa. //
Viewing Room #2: Architecture, SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 // The Xmas Show, SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa //
Cape Town Art Fair, SMAC Gallery, The Lookout, Cape Town, South Africa
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FNB Joburg Art Fair, SMAC Gallery, Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa
// Autumn Group Show, SMAC, Gallery Cape Town, South Africa 2012 // PAINT I: Contemporary South African Painting 2002 - 2012, SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
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Collection 17: Modern and Contemporary South African Art: 1952 – 2012, SMAC Gallery, Aardklop National Arts Festival, Potchefstroom, South Africa Collection 16, SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa FNB Joburg Art Fair, SMAC Gallery, Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa
2011 //
Kate Gottgens, Simon Stone, Giovanna Bialo-Stone and John Murray, Kalk Bay Modern, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 //
FNB Joburg Art Fair, João Ferreira, Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa
2009 //
FNB Joburg Art Fair, João Ferreira, Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007 //
17th International Association of Analytical Psychology Congress, Cape Town International Convention Centre, South Africa
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16th Art Salon, Rose Korber Art, Camps Bay, Cape Town, South Africa
2001 //
Knysna Fine Art, Knysna, South Africa
1999 //
Unplugged, Rembrandt Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1998 //
João Ferreira, Cape Town, South Africa
1996 //
Hanel Gallery Cape Town, South Africa
1995 //
Laager, Africus Biennale, Johannesburg, South Africa
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Scurvy, Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town, South Africa
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Woman on South Africa, Paarl Museum, Paarl, South Africa
1994 //
8th New Delhi Triennale, New Delhi Academy of Fine Art, India
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X it, curated by Malcolm Payne, S.A. Association of Visual Arts, Cape Town, South Africa
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Kate Gottgens and Barend de Wet, 74 Hout St. Cape Town, South Africa
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Volkskas L’Atelier Award Exhibition, S.A. Association of Visual Arts, Pretoria, South Africa
1992 //
Vita Art Now Award Exhibition, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
1991 //
Other Visibilities, Newtown Galleries, Johannesburg, South Africa
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F.I.G Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
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Kate Gottgens and Conrad Weltz, F.I.G. Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
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Daljosaphat Art Foundation, Paarl, South Africa
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S.A. Association of Arts, Cape Town, South Africa
1990 // Pawn/Porn, F.I.G Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa 1988 //
Urban Melodrama, Market Theatre Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Volkskas L’Atelier Award Exhibition, Cape Town, South Africa 186 //
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For Clive, Kitty, Louis and Grace
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Kate Gottgens in her studio, Houtbay, Cape Town - 2015 Photograph by Grace Pollick
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// Alexandra Dodd
Alexandra Dodd is an independent writer and editor. She holds a Master of Arts from Concordia University, Montreal, and a PhD in Literature from the University of Cape Town. Her thesis project, Secular Séance, explores 19th-century hauntings in contemporary South African visual culture. She has edited numerous novels, and contributed essays to several books, including Sam Nhlengethwa (Goodman Gallery Editions, 2006), David Goldblatt: Photographs (Contrasto, 2006), The Fire Walker (Fourthwall, 2011), Hotel Yeoville (Fourthwall, 2013) and Uncertain Curature: In and out of the Archive (Jacana, 2014).
// IVOR POWELL
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KATE GOTTGENS // PAINTINGS 2007 - 2015 Published to coincide with the exhibition; Kate Gottgens: Infinite Loop SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch 1 August – 19 September 2015 Editor Marelize van Zyl Texts Ivor Powell Alexandra Dodd Editorial Assistant and Cataloguing
Marguerite Roux
Design and Layout THE LAKE PUBLISHING Stefan Naudé Photography Frances Penzhorn Shona van der Merwe Production Jean Butler Published by SMAC Art Publishing, 2015 First Floor, de Wet Centre Church Street Stellenbosch South Africa www.smacgallery.com ISBN: 978-0-620-66480-6 Cover Image Kate Gottgens Oh, Green World, 2015 Oil on Canvas 130 x 220 cm Hansa Print (Pty) Ltd, Cape Town No images in this publication may be reproduced, stored on or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the above-mentioned publisher.
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Fish Shop - 2014
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