Paintings:
Drawings:
Artist Statement: “Bly/Stay”
Interiors have the potential of being both still lives and portraits, relying on objects (or on the distance between objects), to accentuate a person, an encounter or a narrative moment. As I reflect on interior spaces from my childhood*, the act of painting becomes an imaginative and intensified expression of the physical world (and my memories of that world), as the lines between the spiritual and physical, between the present and the past, start to unravel.
Rooms, passages, halls and the objects inside of them (like chairs and tables), speak to the viewer because of their ordinariness and recognizability. Yet these familiar interior objects also have the ability to alienate the viewer, underlining their otherness in discomforting ways. In some of the works the interiors are empty and long for companionship (it urges the viewer to “stay” as a petition or a lament) yet in others the interior summons the viewer to an already cheerful space (“stay with me” is extended as an invitation). The tension in these images - between hospitality and hostility – is a theme I hope will murmur something of the viewer’s own memories, fears or experiences, acting as catharsis and compelling us towards self-reflection.
*All the interiors are inspired by the VGK church centre in Cloetesville, Stellenbosch, where the artist’s parents worked in ministry since the 1980’s. They retired in 2017.
Interiors have the potential of being both still lives and portraits, relying on objects (or on the distance between objects), to accentuate a person, an encounter or a narrative moment. As I reflect on interior spaces from my childhood*, the act of painting becomes an imaginative and intensified expression of the physical world (and my memories of that world), as the lines between the spiritual and physical, between the present and the past, start to unravel.
Rooms, passages, halls and the objects inside of them (like chairs and tables), speak to the viewer because of their ordinariness and recognizability. Yet these familiar interior objects also have the ability to alienate the viewer, underlining their otherness in discomforting ways. In some of the works the interiors are empty and long for companionship (it urges the viewer to “stay” as a petition or a lament) yet in others the interior summons the viewer to an already cheerful space (“stay with me” is extended as an invitation). The tension in these images - between hospitality and hostility – is a theme I hope will murmur something of the viewer’s own memories, fears or experiences, acting as catharsis and compelling us towards self-reflection.
*All the interiors are inspired by the VGK church centre in Cloetesville, Stellenbosch, where the artist’s parents worked in ministry since the 1980’s. They retired in 2017.
