‘‘Ten Paintings for Ten Days’’, Justin Morshuis
(Inge Doesburg Gallery)
Currently on display for a short period of time are 10 paintings by local artist Justin Morshuis. Each smallscale painting presents figures (predominately three) in a landscape with trees, and occasionally buildings, executed in a style caught between postimpressionism and German expressionism. For all the pastoral connotations of the figureinlandscape genre, Morshuis’ paintings range in tone or mood from sunny to unease. In some paintings the trees appear as benign guardians and in others they seem to harbour the melancholic and press in on the figures. In one work (all are untitled), the viewer is reminded that Morshuis is also a photographer, and the trees in this painting function as a structural motif, a repeating vertical element anchoring the scene.
The intimate scale of the paintings and their installation also trigger a filmic reading of his work, a reading that is pleasingly interrupted with the generous impastostyle Morshuis deploys to build up the colours and shapes of his figures and forms. His paintings are engaging and humble.
On the opposite wall, Doesburg has hung a selection of works by artists represented by the gallery. The 12 or so works are hung in a salon style that brings out complementary formal relationships between, in particular, the works of Motoko Kikkawa, Kirsten Ferguson and Kim Pieters.