EBONY BORDEAUX HOUSE Franschhoek has 2 Solo Exhibitions Openings of the works of Vivian van der Merwe and Odette Marais, on Saturday 8 March in Franschhoek.
FORM | SILENCE Vivian van der Merwe
EBONY/CURATED invites you to Vivian van der Merwe’s first solo exhibition with the gallery opening this Saturday 8th March in Franschhoek, exhibiting nine new and thought provoking paintings. This influential Stellenbosch based artist is recognised for his deeply considered and refined works of art where stillness and monumentality are woven into complex and detailed compositions that compel the viewer to investigate and question. Inspired by some great creators from the artistic canon, van der Merwe distills the empty space, the quietness that goes beyond narrative and the conceptual which enables him to pursue the visual form in its purest element.
“His work translates the classical virtue of gravitas into a painterly whole that shifts between painted reality and sculptural force. The image asserts itself as an entity, contained by the unfailing presence of the format. The classical stillness of Vermeer, the palette of Rembrandt, the sometimes playful balance of coloured, contained spaces in Mondrian, the flattening of shapes a là Ben Nicholson, the delicacy and whimsy of Klee, the intuitive precision of Joseph Albers’ saturated colour with a deep deference to Henri Matisse – all these elements come together in still, massive wholes which encapsulate that most prized pictorial and spatial quality in painting: that of monumentality.”
– Zoe Earle Storrar Molteno
Vivian van der Merwe (1956- ) Still-life with c.1790’s Tea Caddy, 2025 Oil on Board 34 x 30 cm
Van der Merwe considers the point at which the spoken word reaches its expressive limits, arriving, as George Steiner described, at “the shores of silence.” Beyond rhetoric, beyond meaning and narrative, there exists a space where disciplines like music, mathematics, physics, and painting take root. For the artist, this silence is essential—an indefinable yet necessary threshold that enables his pursuit of visual form and beauty, where painting becomes a language of its own, beyond the constraints of language itself
REQUEST CATALOGUE jade@ebonycurated.com
ELLIPSES Odette Marais
We are delighted to invite you to Ellipses, the latest solo exhibition by Odette Marais, opening at 11:30 am on Saturday, 8 March 2025, at Bordeaux House Gallery in Franschhoek.
Ellipses—those quiet, suspended intervals within language—serve as a profound framework for Marais’s exploration of time, memory, and perception. Just as an ellipsis marks a pause in text, inviting contemplation and unfinished thought, her work inhabits the liminal spaces between experience and reflection, presence and absence.
“The concerns of my practice are found primarily in my fascination with the atmosphere within familiar domestic spaces. Solitary moments… when dust settles and light touches. Time, evidence and absence. A juncture, an instant, captured… just before or just after. A lingering tension or anticipation. The vibration within a quiet, still moment: a shimmer, a shadow and quiet exhalation.” – Odette Marais
Marais’s paintings are an evocative response to her surroundings, guided by an intuitive engagement with process, mark-making, and material exploration. These imagined tableaus act as a means of deciphering fleeting moments, emerging through the interplay of layered textures and shifting surfaces. Each composition unfolds as an accumulation of visual evidence, where traces of prior gestures inform the evolving dialogue of the work. More than mere depictions, her paintings are meditations—anchored in solitude and contemplation— inviting quiet introspection.
REQUEST CATALOGUE jade@ebonycurated.com
“We look forward to welcoming you to the Winelands this Saturday at our Bordeaux House Gallery in Franschhoek” – reads the invite.
WHAT: FORM | SILENCE Vivian van der Merwe & ELLIPSES Odette Marais – 2 Solo Exhibitions
WHERE: EBONY BORDEAUX HOUSE, 4 Bordeaux Street, Franschhoek
WHEN: Opening 08.03.25 Closing 12.04.25
INFO: T +27 (0)21 876 2616 | E | VISIT | LEAD PHOTO Odette Marais (1964-) mirror mirror, 2024 Oil and Mixed Media on Canvas 99 x 96 cm
EBONY CURATED BORDEAUX HOUSE [39]
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