Editor’s Note

Every day, for the past two weeks, I’ve been glued to my phone at 8.30 in the morning my finger on the paper aeroplane icon for DMs (direct messages) on Instagram. An artist, whose work I’ve started to follow, has been playing a little game with her fans (all for a worthy cause to benefit greyhound rescue). For 13 days she’s released a new painting on her profile for sale at a set price, at a semi-set time to the fastest finger in town, on a first-come, first-served basis.

Her series is called the O.K. Club “Tradwife” collection and features “kept” women in various stages of the day: with a side salad; with country club cocktails; with couture comforts; with pedigree pooches and with prime real estate. If you know Olivié Keck’s work, you’ll know that this is a potentially dangerous recipe for disappointment.

Though I snagged the first one in the series, which I’m happy about, subsequent attempts at grabbing a few fellow wall buddies for my “Tradwife” left me wondering how anyone could have possibly beaten me to “the punch”.

That’s what you get for being an art hog. When I met Olivié in Cape Town last week, calling myself a “stalker” on her art Instagram account, she corrected me: “I prefer art angel,” she said.

The feelings of delight that Olivié’s works give me were replicated when I saw the bright, vibrant and joyful art of Sam Nhlengethwa, written about in our featured story this week. Tymon Smith interviewed the revered South African legend and one of the founders of the Bag Factory in Newtown (that runs residencies, houses studios, hosts exhibitions and holds art workshops).

Nhlengethwa, whose latest show is on at the Goodman Gallery, is a local treasure whose works I intend to “stalk” regularly while they grace the walls of the Goodman.