The Influence of the Earth, an exhibition of paintings by Frederike Stokhuyzen, Nola Muller, Juli Jana and sculptor Richard Gunston, opens at The Cape Gallery on Sunday 1 March, 2020.
Frederike Stokhuyzen, Nola Muller, Juli Jana and Richard Gunston have in their practise each made a personal connection to nature. Each artist has the capacity to show us with focused intensity, an aspect of nature. While the initial response may be intuitive, the formal processes of art-making uncover the structures and patterns of growth, light and movement. Percept becomes a concept and can, over time become as abstract as a piece of music.
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” ― Henry David Thoreau
The exhibition will be opened by Andrew Hart on Sunday 1st March 2020 at 4:30 pm
WHERE: The Cape Gallery, 60 Church Street, Cape Town 8001
WHEN: Opening 1 March to 18th April 2020 Hours: Mon to Fri: 09h30 to 17h00, Sat: 10h00 to 14h00
INFO: T +27 21 4235309 I web@capegallery.co.za I Visit
Influence of the Earth Artists
- Frederike Stokhuyzen
Frederike Stokhuyzen acknowledges nature as her muse, constantly refreshing her inspiration by visiting heritage sites such as the Kruger Park in Gauteng or the wine farms in the Western Cape. There she records, in situ, her impressions in pen and wash sketches. Later, in-studio, she translates these references into the powerful monumental vistas she is so well known for.
- Nola Muller
Nola Muller looks to the rock paintings that evidence the nomadic wanderings of the primal San hunters and gatherers and their 3000-year-old narratives of the hunt. The figures in her painting could be participants in trance dances that evoked supernatural help in the hunt and honour the spirit of the animals they kill for food. These epic stories play out against the background of massive baobabs on Kubu Island where she has camped many times and the vast Makgadikgadi Salt Pans where the San roamed freely.
- Juli Jana
Juli Jana has internalised the natural rhythms, light and colour of the natural world, choosing to evoke the sensation of experiencing nature in her abstract canvases, etchings and drawings. As we view her paintings we feel the sunshine and shadow pass over the land, we see the stratified cultivation of fields and the substrata the aeons of evolution. An abstract painting is comparable to a musical composition.
- Richard Gunston
Richard Gunston is a landscape gardener has a practical connection to nature and the seasons. He has taken the opportunity to observe the birdlife, note the flight of swallows and realising this in a small bronze sculpture.
‘To begin to know the wilderness something in me had to come alive ’ Ian McCullum published in his anthology Wild Gifts’
‘But chosen are those artists who penetrate to the region of that secret place where primaeval power nurtures all evolution.’ Paul Klee’ on Modern Art.
See also Cape Town Green Map
