Katherine Spindler and Carolyn Parton present ‘The air between us’ – a conversation between the two artists at the Barnard Gallery.
“A distinction does create a boundary that divides, but that same boundary simultaneously and irrevocably connects that which it separates.” Douglas Flemons, 1991
Flemons sensitises us to connection points at the boundary of our bodies. Our bodily edges separate us from the outside world, yet they are also our point of physical touch with the world beyond ourselves. The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty made us aware of our sense of being as experiences of inner self and experiences of self in the world.
The coexistence of apparent contradictions, such as self and another, is explored by Carolyn Parton and Katherine Spindler in ‘The air between us’. There is separation and distance in the space between us, but it is a space that is made up of the air we share. Experienced like a conversation with two sides, one speaking and one listening, it is not one or the other, it is both. New meaning develops as a result of each utterance, sometimes iteratively.
The works on exhibition unfolded with Parton on another continent, clearing out the space of a dear friend after his death.
Reconciling physical remnants with memories of her friend, she was conversing with Spindler, here in South Africa. At the same time, Spindler was trying to bridge distance and separation from her niece who lives in a different city. Spindler was looking to ‘find’ her niece in videos of her in a troupe of ballerinas. Both artists were navigating the space between trying to hold on and letting go.
In painting, this to-ing and fro-ing between consciously conjuring an image and allowing it to emerge on its own from the paint saw the artists working and reworking their paintings, putting on paint or digital layers, only to take them away. The visible signs of erasure or removal evoke pentimenti, from the Italian, ‘pentimento,’ that means ‘repentance’. For Parton, this reworking is not only telling the story of the history of her painting, but also the stories of other artists through traces of their palettes or paint tubes that are incorporated into her work. It is an invitation into the often personal space of making that is extended to others.
In this way, Parton and Spindler are in conversation with the past as much as with one another. The boundary between their work and those of older artists is dissolved, as the past informs their present. – Text by Lauren Palte
WHAT: Katherine Spindler and Carolyn Parton – The air between us
WHERE: Barnard Gallery 55 Main Street Newlands 7700 Cape Town
WHEN: on view until 29 November 2022
INFO: T +27 21 6711553 | E gallery@barnardgallery.com | Visit | Instagram @barnard_gallery #barnardgallery Facebook: @BarnardGallery
PHOTO: Cherished and Forgotten , 2022 oil on paper 32 x 34,5 cm each
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