2020 | Salon Ninety One Contemporary Art Collection

SOUVENIRS FROM ANOTHER SUMMER

02.12 - 23.12.2020

A solo exhibition of new paintings by Kirsten Beets

Salon Ninety One is proud to present Souvenirs from Another Summer; a solo exhibition by Kirsten Beets. This is the Artists' seventh solo show with our gallery.

This soft, dreamlike collection is expressed in ice cream colours which, at times, seem to melt into each other. Beets explores themes of summer, recreation, nature, and nostalgia. For this exhibition, the Artist has created compellingly beautiful scenes rendered in oil on board, paper, and linen. Beets' subject matter for Souvenirs from Another Summer includes swimmers, birds, ruined monuments, cats and big cats, beachgoers, artefacts, horses, butterflies, bunnies, snorkelers, and palm trees.

This summer collection is quintessentially Kirsten Beets; and demonstrates the artist's ongoing fascination with her much-loved characters, subject matters, the season of leisure, bright colours, growth, water, and sunshine.

ARTWORKS

GOODNIGHT MOON

04.11 - 28.11.2020

A solo exhibition of new paintings by Kirsten Sims

In response to being confined to a small space with a tiny newborn, this body of work is a reflection on the early lockdown months of 2020. I started reading an old classic, Goodnight Moon (Margaret Wise Brown) to my son every night at around the same time as our one bedroom flat became our entire universe. The act of reading the same story out loud every night, over and over again, became a meditative ritual. The story is poetically simple and its words have a way of gently lulling one to sleep as the bunny says goodnight, one by one, to all the familiar things in the room. The story started to reflect my relationship to our flat and the way it became our whole world and the way the plant in the corner and the light fittings and the paintings on the walls became these objects of total fascination to my one-month old baby. We weren’t allowed outside, and outside wasn’t allowed inside. The book is both comforting and strangely unsettling and I think that reflects my experience of being a new mother in these weird times: cozy and lonely at the same time.

- Kirsten Sims; Cape Town, September 2020

This exhibition features a combination of mixed media paintings on Italian cotton and board. Sims' subject matter for Goodnight Moon ranges from vistas, portraits, landscapes, nightscapes, animated crowd scenes, to intimate domestic moments; with images drawn from the Artist's new life as a mother, themes from the book, familiar landscapes, as well as narratives both real and imagined. Each highly unique piece has been brought to life by the Artist's extremely vivid imagination and much-loved sense of humour; for which her work has become so renowned.

GOOD VIBRATIONS

07.10 - 31.10.2020

A solo exhibition by Chloe Townsend

Salon Ninety One is proud to present Good Vibrations by Chloe Townsend - her very first solo exhibition with our gallery. A true celebration of female creativity and power, this body of work was created and produced by the Artist in collaboration with the talented Missibabas. The works which form part of this collection are playful yet potent. Chloe Townsend uses bold colour, repeating motifs such as hands and eyes, and 3D layering to masterfully explore her medium. The Artist skillfully traverses the often-blurred lines between concept, fashion, design, craft, and fine art. This dynamic body of work subverts the masculinity often associated with leatherworking through her choice of subject matter. Throughout the show, the viewer is offered up scenes of contemplation, sweet surrender, joyful offerings, and dreamscapes unfurling over fields of flowering plants.

ARTIST STATEMENT
This body of work has been created in celebration of the 15- year journey of Missibaba. The leather pieces have been lovingly brought to life by myself and the Missibaba team. Looking back at some of our much-loved symbols and themes, it has been such a joy for us all to make this work all the while sharing remembrances of this wild roller coaster ride we've travelled together. As a team we have tried to push the boundaries of leathercraft. Looking at traditional techniques, we have brought a large dose of unique feminine vibrancy to a traditionally masculine craft. A deep love of pattern and colour is woven through each piece. We hope this joy and all the love we've invested is tangible. Good vibrations to all!

TO MAKE A LANDSCAPE FIT INDOORS

09.09 - 03.10.2020

A solo exhibition of paintings and sculpture by Jeanne Hoffman

In To make a landscape fit indoors, I draw collected impressions back into the space of painting. Normally, when preparing for a show, I would drift between various mediums setting up relationships between things, but the constraints of lockdown required a strategy of turning inward. It necessitated the use of whatever was at hand. I returned to collage: Collecting fragments of whatever caught my eye, and assembling them into arrangements that obediently fit within the edges of a page. The processes of cutting and arranging became a kind of gardening of fragments.

In transferring the collage references into the field of painting, the metaphor of the garden became the guiding principle. I worked from multiple perspectives, zooming in and out of the constructed landscapes, shifting focus between textures from up close to more distant views, often in the same work. Frames and borders became important: the idea of a device that separates inside and outside.

At times, I stayed quite close to legible references in the collages. These material borrowings serve to engage in an interplay between physical objects and their relation to the poetic objects of the imagination. Their peripheral presences pointing to relational meanings of the interdependent dualities of becoming/disintegrating, inside/outside and room/object. These considerations are similarly described in the frames within frames of paintings, which interrogate the limits of the object and the room/object border.

Gardening has to do with observing change. A garden is at once completely still and continually changing: continuous movement and accumulated object. It speaks of the tension between motion and stillness inherent in assemblage – the process of being formed, of “becoming”, which inhabits relationships between discrete elements of the work. In "becoming", one piece is drawn into the territory of another, changing its value as an element and bringing about an unexpected unity. Deleuze would say, the life of the work is in the “intermezzo”.

- Jeanne Hoffmann, September 2020, Cape Town

A HAZY SHADE OF WINTER

08.08 - 05.09.2020

A Hazy Shade of Winter is a salon-style group show including works by represented, associated, and exciting new artists. Exhibiting Artists include Adele Van Heerden, Alexia Vogel, Amber Moir, Andrew Sutherland, Black Koki, Elléna Lourens, Keya Tama, Ello Xray Eyez, Emma Nourse, Gabrielle Raaff, Heidi Fourie, Jade Klara, Jeanne Hoffman, Jessica Bosworth Smith, Joh Del, Katrin Coetzer, Katrine Claassens, Keneilwe Mothoa, Kirsten Beets, Kirsten Sims, Laurinda Belcher, Lené Ehlers, Lili Probart, Linsey Levendall, Mareli Esterhuizen, Marolize Southwood, Matthew Prins, Mona Haumann, Natasha Norman, Nicole Clare Fraser, Nina Torr, Paul Senyol, Sarah Pratt, Tara Deacon, and Zarah Cassim.

The group exhibition inspired by the Simon and Garfunkel song of the same name, seeks to explore subject matters, palettes, and imagery which capture and express the varied emotions, colours, memories, and atmosphere, which this season brings. For some artists, winter evokes icy vistas, cool palettes of blues and whites, and the change to colder and shorter days. For others, the changing season elicits a longing for warmer times, the comfort of staying indoors close to the fire, the use of warm and jewel tones, and the desire to capture nature in full bloom.

Winter provides a milestone for the passage of time through the year. For many, 2020 has felt somewhat surreal; time has moved on and the seasons have changed and yet there is a feeling that normal life was a lifetime ago.

Throughout the collection, the viewer is invited to contemplate the artists’ relationship with the season of winter and how something as simple as a change in weather can have a profound impact on the kinds of work they produce.

ARTWORKS:

ADELE VAN HEERDEN

ALEXIA VOGEL

AMBER MOIR

ANDREW SUTHERLAND

BLACK KOKI

ELLÉNA LOURENS | KEYA TAMA

ELLO XRAY EYEZ

EMMA NOURSE

GABRIELLE RAAFF

HEIDI FOURIE

JADE KLARA

JEANNE HOFFMAN

JESSICA BOSWORTH SMITH

JOH DEL

KATRIN COETZER

KATRINE CLAASSENS

KENEILWE MOTHOA

KIRSTEN BEETS

KIRSTEN SIMS

LAURINDA BELCHER

LENÉ EHLERS

LILI PROBART

LINSEY LEVENDALL

MARELI ESTERHUIZEN

MAROLIZE SOUTHWOOD

MATTHEW PRINS

MONA HAUMANN

NATASHA NORMAN

NICOLE CLARE FRASER

NINA TORR

PAUL SENYOL

SARAH PRATT

TARA DEACON

ZARAH CASSIM

MEMORIAL

01.07 - 01.08.2020

A Solo exhibition by Paul Senyol

Senyol’s latest solo exhibition at Salon91, Memorial, foregrounds an introspective consideration of living and dying with regard to the recent pandemic, but in the body of each painting the artist chooses to focus on the complexity of a unique, lived experience within a shared reality. Lockdown has given him the means to connect with the individual character of each work through more extensive planning and refining of paintings. As sites of reflection, the works in Memorial carry in them the artist’s experience of a particular international reality while becoming, over time, unique markers for looking back at this moment in history.

Senyol has embraced the forced time of stasis during lockdown this year to paint with a reflective honesty inspired by the humble power of a piece of literature by Roald Dahl titled “Over to You”. As the title suggests, the collection of short stories is a total relinquishing of control on the part of the narrator. What Dahl’s stories achieve in their quietly remarkable way is a raw honesty of experience without prescription as to intention or meaning. Honesty and relinquishing to process is something Senyol has aspired to in his works. His time spent in studio has been as much about production as contemplation, a means of revisiting processes from the past with new perspective. His most fruitful musings have been in prolonged engagement with the painting in progress. Exposed areas of under-painting have been left revealed, working in juxtaposition with a finished, drawn flourish such that the surface reveals a raw visual record of labour and layer. The unsanctioned marks of the street that so inspire his paintings are recorded in this process of painted exposure, with figures and forms shimmering across the canvas surface in various states of articulation to form a completed work.

Senyol has particularly enjoyed working with the Black River team to produce a unique edition of screenprints for this exhibition. Each print is anchored by a composition that shifts and evolves in colour and mark so that although it is an edition, each piece displays its unique character. This theme is also present in ‘Twelve Stories’, a work made up of twelve painted canvas panels. Envisioned as a compositional whole, each panel also functions individually as a completed work.

There is an honest fracturing of form in the works in Memorial, as though the artwork were a body marked by experiences that have scarred its surface in much the same way that the metaphorical body of a street wall, curb or World War memorial is scarred by daily use. These spaces do not grow old because they are consistently worn anew by their occupation and habitation by the living - those that ‘irreverently’ lay their washed clothes along a monument’s balustrade to dry in the sun or picnic on a plaqued plinth.

THINGS BEHIND THE SUN

20.05 - 27.06.2020

Group Exhibition

Things Behind the Sun is a group exhibition featuring the latest works of Bruce Mackay, Jean de Wet, Kirsten Beets, Maaike Bakker, Nina Torr and Tara Deacon.

This exhibition, inspired by the lyrics of Nick Drake’s song of the same name, is a playful exploration of vivacious colours, decisive lines, and undaunted expression. Things Behind the Sun as a collection of artworks, is a foil to the uncertain times the artists, and the entire world, find themselves in. Each artist, in their body of work, seeks to explore the familiar and the comforting. This group of artists has endeavoured to embrace their signature visual language and find outlets for expression during the strangeness of the current global crisis.

In Bruce Mackay’s work, the artist explores the role of boundaries as demarcations of either safety or restriction through the use of crisp lines and the depiction of cairns and other boundary markers. Jean de Wet’s works look to reflect the strangeness of our reality in works which are fantastical and, yet, familiar. In her work, Kirsten Beets seeks to express the dream-like qualities of the sun which softly illuminates scenes of longing and solitude. Maaike Bakker’s works traverse the razor edge between that which can be controlled, and that which cannot. In her work, Nina Torr looks to the cryptic world of alchemy to express a sense of mysticism. And, Tara Deacon creates seemingly familiar domestic scenes which unsettle as they intrigue.

ARTWORKS:

BRUCE MACKAY

JEAN DE WET

KIRSTEN BEETS

MAAIKE BAKKER

NINA TORR

TARA DEACON

ALONG THE LINE

26.02 - 28.03.2020

An exhibition of Watercolour Monotypes by Amber Moir

Amber Moir: Along the Line

For her second solo show with Salon91, Amber Moir continues her exploration of the limits and possibilities of watercolour monotype printmaking. In Along the Line, a process-orientated show, Moir traverses the parameters and intentionally wanders outside the margins.

The title of the exhibition refers to the interplay between adhering to and deviating from self-imposed rules and printmaking conventions. Following an often intuitive, experimental and fluid process, in this body of work Moir explores within, around and beyond orthodox ways of printing. Each artwork is a response, firstly to the “line” – restrictions of the process – and secondly to the other pieces in the collection of works. It is this moving beyond and within the “line” that binds the works into a cohesive whole and connects the conventional and experimental monotype prints. “For this show I became interested in seeing works as selected visual elements ‘pulled out’, breaking the confines of the printing plate and then reconstructing a ‘whole’ using multiple prints in space,” Moir explains.

The large landscape piece To the Reach is the anchor point of the show, drawing the line from which the other works respond. The swathes of colour and loose brush marks resemble an aerial view of a landscape. While neatly contained within the demarcated frame of the border, the boundaries of this landscape drift away; the edges slide off the pane. Each of the other works is a fragment of this piece, an alternate view honing in or zooming out to explore different parts of the whole. The colour palette of each work is likewise derived from deconstructed swatches of the motley and muted shades in To the Reach. By presenting the works suspended in an installation, Moir reassembles these sectional views into a fragmented whole, but one which shifts and moves, where negative space becomes an active delineator, and plurality of perspectives unites the sum parts into the whole.

Contradictions are incorporated into the logic of Along the Line: rules are outlined and then broken, quiet works demand space, and the delicate, seemingly ephemeral works are the product of an intensely physical and laborious process – printed outdoors with a pitch-roller. Moir began experimenting with this through a desire to challenge her sense of control and force herself to surrender to the process. Printing with a pitch-roller requires the whole body to work the print. Unlike the controlled environment of the studio press, this method of printing is imprecise, unpredictable, leaving traces of the process in folds, creases, tears in the fabric. But this malleability and materiality is precisely what interests Moir. The fabric used is similarly chosen for its textural integrity: “I like the durability, rawness and practical connotations of the calico as substrate; it is straight from the loom and unbleached, so it has a warmth and grit to it that I like,” Moir explains.

Monotypes are unique in printmaking in that a plate yields a single transfer. In this sense the process can be understood as a hybrid between painting and printing. Watercolour pigments are painted onto a sheet of polypropylene plastic coated with gum arabic, before being passed through a press or rolled with the pitch-roller to transfer a mirror image of the plate onto the substrate. By working in watercolour, which is delicate by nature, Moir is mindful of the inevitable loss of mark and pigment in the process of transferring the image from plate to fabric. The print becomes like a ghost of the plate, imbued with its presence, a trace of the line.

In Along the Line, Moir’s most ambitious body of work to date, process and concept become inextricably combined and impressed into one another. Each work is at once both a fragment of the larger visual narrative of the collection, and a unique experiment traversing the parameters of printmaking.

Text by: Layla Leiman

FIELD NOTES

01.04 - 19.05.2020

An exhibition of recent paintings, prints and drawings by Andrew Sutherland

Sutherland has been an avid adventurer and armchair traveller since he was a child. His capacity to plunge into a meaningful imaginative journey through images is at times as visceral an experience as his actual trips through Taiwan, Vietnam and South Africa. He is a passionate collector of picture books, relishing the curious scenes of landscapes, animals and plants that historic explorers have published, whether in pursuit of vague scientific credence or nostalgic reflection.

For his latest solo exhibition at Salon Ninety One titled Field Notes, Sutherland has embodied the position of the explorer and amassed an amazing collection of drawings, paintings and prints of his imaginative adventures through images. He is contently seduced by the faded colour palettes of old books or early photographs and finds innovative expression for this passion in new techniques featured on Field Notes for the first time. These include impasto oil paintings on primed paper, as well as his first risographs - a form of digital printing that uses colour separations.

In Field Notes Sutherland crafts a wistful portrait of the adventurer-explorer from yesteryear. His saturation in experiences mediated by book, film or documentary has led him to exploit a variety of artistic surfaces and painted marks in the exhibition. Through digital print, oil paint, acrylic and drawings, Sutherland invites viewers to immerse themselves in an imaginative journey through picture places of wonder.

Andrew Sutherland is inspired by wanderlust and the narratives that underlie human encounters with the natural world. His work relishes the delights of landscape in painted planes that combine graphic and illustrative elements with more traditionally painterly, expressive marks. His taste for adventure follows through with a long and explorative history of experimentation with different materials: watercolours, brush pens, acrylic paints, charcoal, ink, spray paint or collage on canvas, paper, wood or wall. Sutherland’s training was in Fine Art at The Ruth Prowse School of Art, after which he worked as an assistant to a local abstract painter in Cape Town.

He travels and adventures frequently so that in both artwork and life his subtext remains that of the intrepid explorer.

ARTWORKS:

INVESTEC CAPE TOWN ART FAIR 2020

14.02 - 16.02.2020

Venue: Cape Town International Convention Centre

Booth Numbers: B11 in main galleries / B12 in solo section

From the 14th – 16th of February 2020, the 8th edition of Investec Cape Town Art Fair (ICTAF) will return to the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC). Positioned as the leading art fair in Africa, ICTAF 2020 will include the foremost galleries from South Africa, the African continent, and abroad.

Salon Ninety One will be participating in the MAIN GALLERIES and SOLO sections of the fair this year.

The main gallery exhibit will be located at Booth B11, and will feature the latest works of Amber Moir, Chloe Townsend, Heidi Fourie, Jeanne Hoffman, Katrin Coetzer, Kirsten Beets, Kirsten Sims, Linsey Levendall, Nicole Clare Fraser, Paul Senyol and Zarah Cassim.

At Booth B12 the gallery will be presenting a curated solo exhibition by Kirsten Beets.

ARTWORKS:

AMBER MOIR

CHLOE TOWNSEND

HEIDI FOURIE

JEANNE HOFFMAN

KATRIN COETZER

KIRSTEN BEETS

KIRSTEN SIMS