Jaco van Schalkwyk in a show titled “I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things…” opens at the Barnard Gallery on 24 October.
van Schalkwyk’s artworks are subtle and complex visual chronicles. We do not perceive his artworks instantaneously – the work should be pondered over for their true significance to reveal and manifest the deeper meaning of the works. Jaco van Schalkwyk is not a visual one-liner… ever.
With his latest exhibition “I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things…” the artist again revisits spiritual and religious ideology, but with this exhibition the artist explores the intertwined nature of faith and art. Van Schalkwyk recontextualizes the perpetation of ritual and allegory to create social cohesion and moral clarity. Van Schalkwyk depicts imagined visual narratives and biographies to explore the synthesis of flesh and faith.
The majority of artworks in the “I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things…” exhibition, references imagery from historical artworks or religious text. These act as pretext to most of the narrative allegories. Thus Van Schalkwyk’s works encode information from the greater history of art. The Baroque, Romanticism, 17th century Protestant allegories, and the material manifestations of spiritual magnificence through religious reliquaries, are all alluded to by van Schalkwyk. Van Schalkwyk abandons minimalist restraint to create eclectic visual rituals that acts as an abridgement of the artists ideas regarding contemporary virtues. Van Schalkwyk’s works represent pictures as eroded moral puzzles.
“In a world devoted to the surface of the surface, van Schalkwyk urges you to close your eyes and open your mind.” Sandra Hanekom, Artist and Curator
WHERE: Barnard Gallery, 55 Main Street, Newlands 7700
WHEN: opens 24 October to 5 December 2013
INFO: Brad Twaddle 021 671 1553 Barnard Gallery
