common sense: a sketchbook by Nadja Daehnke
23 March - 28 April 2019
common sense: a sketchbook This exhibition playfully looks at the notion of ‘common sense’ – or indeed, the strangeness of the idea that there might be a sense shared by all. This strangeness is explored in relation to social conventions, language and text and, especially, visual and artistic conventions. The play around artistic conventions is picked up in references to paint-by-numbers, tracing and ‘how to draw’ exercises – all common ways of creating images, but in the ‘fine art’ tradition considered hobby art, or only ever used ironically. In common sense these hobby exercises sit alongside painted images executed in line with more conventional ‘high art’ expectations. The humour rests partly in juxtaposing ‘hobby art’ with ‘fine art’ approaches in a context where many contemporary artworld cognoscenti have long ago left behind the notion of virtuoso drawing and ‘good’ painting.
If this points to how expectations shape the way art is perceived in different contexts, then this theme is also picked up in terms of wider social expectations. IQ tests, references to the ‘how what why when’ questions that underpin journalism, and the use of colours promoted as ‘universal’ (specifically ‘International Orange’, a colour used globally as the safety colour in aviation) all gently tease about a hope for stability. I have always been obsessed with this dream of stability and fixity – the longing for something that is not contingent – and yet find great amusement in how in the contemporary world we both acknowledge the futility of this, but still cannot help but to fantasise of universals and to speak in universal rules. Nowhere is this, perhaps, more obvious than in language, and common sense picks up on this. The subjectivity of words such as ‘Our’ becomes foregrounded once the word is stripped of context and displaced onto a somewhat quizzical sculptural shape. Similarly, titles giving the size of the universe and the age of the earth
lose all communicative and pedagogic possibility as the sublime vastness of these numbers renders us unable to have any sense of what they actually mean. In another painting, the use of the phonetic ‘TŌŌ MEN’ is both a description of what is seen on the work - an image of two men - but also a play on their exaggerated masculinity, with bulging whey-muscled physique. They are, indeed, too much of a man. The title of the exhibition mentions a sketchbook as this is how I have conceived of the images – with the play and experimentation a sketchbook encourages. The notion of books is, however, also a wider theme that runs through the exhibition. Many images used originate from encyclopaedias. The notion of an encyclopaedia – a book that, in theory at least, contains all knowledge and thus delimits the world – was a starting point for this series. Whilst Wikipedia is the encyclopaedia de jour, it is precisely the obsolescence of the physical bookencyclopaedia that draws me. It seems an apt metaphor for our futility of searching for what is common in our sense.
NADJA DAEHNKE was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 1993 she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree cum laude at the University of Cape Town, followed by Masters in Fine Art and Masters in History of Art degrees, both with distinction. Nadja has exhibited nationally and internationally and has lectured at various tertiary institutions in both theory and practical subjects. Now working as independent curator, art project manager and artist, Nadja held the post of curator of the Michaelis Galleries, University of Cape Town, from 2010 to early-2013. Prior to this she worked at the Iziko South African National Gallery as Curator for Contemporary Painting and Sculpture.
The speed of the universe is is 68 kilometers per second per megaparsec, whereone megaparsec is 1 million parsec, which is 3.26 million light-years 2019 Mixed media on canvas 510 x 410 mm
The age of the earth is 4.51 billion years 2019 Oil paint and glaze on canvas 510 x 410 mm
Next to me I 2019 Oil on canvas 510 x 410 mm
Next to me II 2019 Oil on canvas 510 x 410 mm
Too Men 2019 Oil and acrylic paint on sized 640 gsm Fabriano paper and encyclopedia page 23 x 29.5 cm & 11.5 x 11 cm
IQ Test 2019 Oil and acrylic paint on canvas 510 x 410 mm
What, when, how, where 2019 Oil and acrylic paint on sized 640 gsm Fabriano paper 310 x 230 mm
Messenger 2019 Oil and acrylic paint on sized 640 gsm Fabriano paper 290 x 185 mm & 290 x 65mm
Model with swatch of Reeves oil paint colour no 492021 – Flesh tint 2019 Oil and acrylic paint on sized 640 gsm Fabriano paper 290 x 270 mm & 65 x 72mm
International Safety Orange (Plascon) 2019 Oil and acrylic paint on sized 640 gsm Fabriano paper on wood 155 x 230 x 10 mm
International Safety Orange (Dulux) 2019 Oil and acrylic paint on sized 640 gsm Fabriano paper on wood 125 x 170 x 13 mm
A Red Material 2019 Oil and acrylic paint on sized 640 gsm Fabriano paper on wood and found material 255 x 295 x 40 mm
Hands 2019 Oil and acrylic paint on sized 640 gsm Fabriano paper on wood 270 x 180 x 12 mm
Best Friend 2019 Oil paint on sized 640 gsm Fabriano paper on wood 270 x 180 x 12 mm
Aaah, Oooh 2019 Oil and acrylic paint on sized 640 gsm Fabriano paper on wood 5 Elements: 245 x 370 mm; 205 x 270 mm; 90 x 255 x 10 mm; 75 x 55 x 10 mm; 70 x 55 x 10 mm
Our 2019 Oil and acrylic paint on sized 640 gsm Fabriano paper on wood 240 x 190 x 60 mm
7A Long Street, Darling, 7345 thetoffeegallery.co.za