Masters graduates’ works highlight social issues
NELSON Mandela University masters graduates are showing a punchy quartet of exhibitions this month which use photography, sculpture, ceramics and other media to highlight social and political issues.
The subject matter includes a penetrating look at people with albinism, the natural beauty of the Karoo before fracking, sensually tactile female nudes and memory.
The work of the four graduates in the visual arts department in the School of Music, Art and Design is on show at two venues: Skin Deep is at the Athenaeum and the other three are in a joint exhibition at the NMU Art Gallery in Bird Street.
ý Skin Deep by Robyn Larkin (Athenaeum)
M photography graduate Larkin has explored discrimination against persons with albinism in sub-Saharan Africa through large-scale photographs, sculpture, X-rays and printed fabric.
She says her interpretive pieces were inspired by case study encounters and they certainly are an ingeniously creative way to draw attention to this subject.
She uses black and white X-rays, for example, to capture images of people who could be black and white at the same time, or white, or black, while another installation of brightly printed fabrics shows the vulnerability of albino infants. They are visual hints of a much larger story which is begging to be told.
ý Karoo by Nadia van der Walt
Van der Walt’s M Tech Photography exhibition of digital prints and documentary videos shows the Karoo before shale gas exploration starts.
This young artist has been working as a videographer with the Africa Earth Observatory Network (Aeon) group for the past three years, documenting its projects which are now given expression in her academic work. Aeon has been trying to generate scientific knowledge across the Karoo basin in this province ahead of any fracking which might still take place.
“The aim is to create a baseline visual record of the Karoo,” Van der Walt notes.
She has captured the unspoilt environment in sweepingly beautiful landscape photography and video, and the five short digital videos are accompanied by music that is both haunting and meditative.
One of these outlines how the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) – or drone – captures the footage and this new way of taking images really does give a magnificent overview of the bleak landscape below.
ý Armature-based ceramics by Michelle Luyt
This M Tech Ceramics graduate aimed at developing armature-based ceramics using South African raw materials, leading to a less expensive creative process.
Luyt said she was inspired to make these sculptural forms by her own doodles. However, whereas traditional ceramics would be solid, she aimed at finding a way to make thin structured ceramic form using local ingredients. “This will allow South African artists to create armature-based ceramics without having to rely on imported raw materials.
“The artworks created are based on abstract linear forms inspired by insects with complex shapes and thin appendages,” she said.
ý Absence and Presence by Sarah Walmsley
This M Tech Sculpture graduate used bronze, resin and glass to mould a series of female nudes for her treatise titled Absence and Presence: in Search of Memory and the Imago.
“The body of work is presented as a narrative installation and exhibition of sculptural work. Personal memories will always collide with the present and bring with them the memories of absence, but encourage the subject to make tangible this absence in order to confront it, and in doing so, realise that it cannot be addressed separately from the presence which defines it,” Walmsley writes in her notes.
However, even if you do not know the background to her work, the group of clear and solid figures is undeniably beautiful, with tactile and sensuous lines.
The NMU Gallery at 20 Bird Street is open from 9.30am to 3pm on weekdays. Inquiries: Jonathan van der Walt, (041) 504-3293. The Athenaeum in Athol Fugard Terrace is open from 9am to 4pm on weekdays. Inquiries: Asanda, (041) 585-1041.