This year, Lizamore & Associates are showcasing a wide variety in works at the Turbine Art Fair, ranging from paintings, drawings to sculpture.
Participating artists are Jan Tshikhuthula, Thabang Lehobye, Banele Khoza, Karin Dando, Lwandiso Njara, Adriaan Diedericks, Samuel Allerton, Ronél de Jager and Haidee Nel.
Hand-picked by acclaimed gallerist, Teresa Lizamore, this selection offers sound investment opportunities to new and regular collectors.
Visit the Lizamore & Associates booth GH9 at the Turbine Fair. Click here to buy tickets.
Through his translucent and emotive paintings and digital prints, Khoza attempts to capture the conversations of subconscious thoughts that are accompanied by the emotions he feels whilst creating works. His works continues this subconscious dialogue on a daily basis, continuously creating pieces as a type of diary of his thoughts. He does not aim to create a perfect outcome, but rather to express these daily emotions and thoughts.
Diedericks’ upbringing in rural Piketberg pervades the conceptual impetuous of his artworks. “My work attempts to mimic the expansive landscape of my youth” says the artist. This is evident in the manner in which his practice continually spills forth from drawing into three-dimensionality. Through sculpture he attempts to manipulate the messages inherent to scale and material, having worked in povera substances such as found wood and plastic, often solidifying it in permanence through the use of bronze.
Allerton's sculptures tend to be simplistic, contemplative, often solemn - drawing influences from artists like Mark Rothko, Henry Moore, Anthony Gormley, Isamu Naguchi and Brancusi. These playful warrior pieces are reminiscent of Allerton’s childhood heroic archetypes. In a way these figures represent the hero in all of us.
Lwandiso Njara works around various themes such as human existence within technocratic social orders, and his own spiritual journey through Christianity and the Xhosa ancestral rituals. These post-colonial constructs of identity are explored through the use of bronze/concrete sculptural works. Njara makes use of a leitmotif: the pick-axe tool, which is used as a metaphor for his exploration of the discontinuities of his spiritual awakening.
Haidee Nel is a Michaelis graduate and she studied sculpture under the supervision of both Jane Alexander and Gavin Young. She is an award-winning artist and is included in numerous private and public collections. Having two daughters of her own, sculptor and performance artist Haidee Nel became aware of the harsh reality of escalating violence against children. This urged her to create the imaginative and quirky yet empowering sculptures of small girls. Masked by their playfulness, these works question the certainty of our children’s future.
Johannesburg based contemporary artist, illustrator and designer, Thabang Lehobye completed his studies at The Artist Proof Studio in 2004. In his charcoal drawings, Lehobye portrays intimate inner-cityscapes to allow the viewer a glance into the ever-changing landscape of the city. Through these works the artist aims to simultaneously challenge the viewer’s reaction to symbols found in city spaces and create awareness of the contemporary social issues in these spaces.
Tshikhuthula’s nostalgic and Romantic landscapes in charcoal and pastel are reminiscent of his childhood in Tzaneen and reflects the African landscape that is recognizable to many. Tshikhuthula portrays a contemporary African landscape. He reflects on the remnants of industrialisation and urbanization – as seen through the artist portrayal of water pumps, houses and fences. For Tshikhuthula, these objects portray the memories and histories embedded in the land.
In this body of works, 5th Degree Removed, Dando explores her interest of what drives the human race. Often, when erotica is viewed, an interesting response always arises when one is confronted with imagery that titillates. It is through this line of thought that Dando focusses her attention on the viewer and the viewer’s response. The miniature scale paintings force the viewer into close proximity which becomes intimate. The viewer is then in dialogue with himself/herself. The 5th Degree Removed series challenges the viewer to become a voyeur.
Influenced by her experimentation with infrared photography and how we see and perceive light, time and the transcendental, De Jager creates an interplay between the real and surreal in a new series of paintings of familiar Johannesburg grasslands landscape. It is this very mediation between photography and paint where De Jager actively teleports her viewer, from action to memory. The once still landscape seems disturbed, disrupted by some kind of alteration; her sensitivity to time and her ability to slow it down through the painting process but also halt it as you stand in front of her work, is transcendental. Devoid of human inhabitants, the landscapes contemplate a sense of aloneness and isolation.
