Transported to another realm
Elements of Realism. At Absolut Gallery until June 24. Mary Corrigall reviews
LAKE URI seems to have gone untouched since Jan Volschenk painted it in the late 1800s. Or, at least, this is how it appears in online photographs of this natural wonder in Switzerland.
It is easy to see why this South African painter chose to represent this bucolic setting, which is the head-turner at the Elements of Realism exhibition at the Absolut Art gallery in Stellenbosch.
Volschenk has, in his typical romanticised approach, accentuated its beauty via a mix of whispy pink and blue tones.
As is the case with a number of contemporary photographic representations, he has included a small boat on the lake, but it barely appears to have caused a ripple. In this way, Volschenk has exaggerated the beauty and qualities this natural setting evokes. Like the romantic painters of that era he delivers on something more than a photographic representation could – he drives home the sensations that escape the naked eye.
As dated as this tradition in painting might be, it has been revived via a group of Cape Townbased artists from Jake Aikman, Sarah Biggs to Ruby Swinney, who are all fixated with not only depicting natural settings but doing so in such a way as to transport the view to another realm of sorts.
There are numerous reasons why they may be falling back on the Romantic mode but the one worth paying attention to in the context of Elements of Realism has to do with the impact of photography on painting or the push-pull relationship between these two mediums.
Painters rely heavily on photos for reference and have been under pressure as a result to deliver more than a mechanical representation.
Instagram and social media has further disrupted this relationship, forcing artists to look beyond “reality”. But this isn’t always the case. Largely, the work by living artists in this exhibition have not followed in Volchenk’s footsteps or those of the fashionable artists in Cape Town. Some prefer to head in the opposite direction and to embrace the humdrum of ordinary life through figurative painting that is closer to real life.
In This is not a Throne, Andries Bezuidenhout is concerned with the most overlooked domestic subject-matter – the toilet. Rosemary Joynt ploughs the same rough seam in Shoes for the Mielie
Lady. The shoes aren’t visible; they presumably are concealed inside a plastic bag hanging off a hook beneath an air vent. These works offer the real with a capital R.
Would these works pack more punch if they were photos? We seem to think of photos as being more “real” than paintings, but do we pay them as much attention?
The relationship between photography and realism is more prominent in Gerbrand van Heerden’s
Peaches, which are so accurately captured you can spend hours trying to detect brushstrokes. A lifelike water-droplet on the peaches is both marvellous and kitsch in that it is such an old-fashioned device used to convince the viewer the painting is not a painting.
This degree of hyper-realism is present in Rob MacIntosh’s renderings of small town life. Again, you find yourself wondering why he doesn’t aim his camera at these scenes, rather than going through the laborious effort of faithfully representing them.
What does painting offer, besides the pleasure of painting to the painter? Maybe a painting of a toilet makes us (re)consider the toilet, rather than dismiss it?
Walter Meyer and John Kramer appear committed to capturing ordinary street scenes. Kramer’s
Fraserburg kafee, does as the title suggests. With the Coca-Cola advert painted on its exterior nature it serves as a familiar touchstone for South African urbanity.
Downtown scenes of small towns feature prominently in this exhibition.
MacIntosh delivers a precise-looking rendition of Beaufort West, while Meyer adds a more expressive twist on his depiction of Britstown. Meyer’s expressive mode doesn’t quite deliver on the romanticism of the Volschenk.
He may be leaning towards a romanticised view of the setting than Kramer or MacIntosh yet he too is somehow gripped by the pull of the ordinary. At what point does the ordinary become extraordinary in an artistic sense and perhaps a transcendental sense?
It comes down to what the viewer wants or understands the function of art to be and how they value it. As it happens, the Volschenk is the most expensive artwork in this exhibition, and perhaps the pricetag and status is what compels us to consider it for longer and desire it more than the other artworks.