See artist Belinda Blignaut doing her performance art piece Mud Rites inside the Church Street window display of Nel Art Gallery, this coming Saturday the 30th from 11 am to 1 pm.
Nel Art are extending their Summer Salon for another month in order to give people more time to view and also to make space for other artists who also voiced a need to exhibit.
“We are rotating our hang to facilitate this. New works by new artists are up on our walls, some older stock remain and then this upcoming Saturday the 30th of January The artist best known for her punk aesthetic and more recently for the unusual way she approaches and creates ceramics. Vessels are crafted from wild clay very specific to the areas she finds it in. Often she will incorporate whatever happens to be at the site. This can vary form pieces of razor wire to fossilized animals from long ago. This artist’s practice incorporates all of that.”
Her performance work often involves getting literally into the clay, into the vessel and emerging as if from a chrysalis. It can also, more recently, see her climbing into and under the wet clay, connecting directly with the earth.
In the artist’s own words:
“This act is a surrender to earth, to a path in my practice, to passion.”
Belinda Blignaut
“Rites mark a passage between one state and another. Both art and rites enable us to express the intuitive in a visceral, visible way”
“Placing my body into earth speaks of transformation, a continual dying and rebirthing, a celebration of a mud connection.”
“I see my body as earth, as dirt, as soil, as loss, as transforming, as finding”
“I’m learning every day from nature: how it grows, how it forms, how it adapts and survives, why it adapts and survives. I remain in awe.”
“Finding and exploring an earth connection has become a guide in learning to work deeper”
WHERE: Nel Art Gallery, 117 Long Street, Cape Town 8001
WHEN: Saturday 30 January from 11:00 to 13:00 for Mud Rites
This specific performance artwork will be extra safe as the performer herself will be sealed off from those watching by the sheet of glass (the window)
Please wear masks and practice generous social distancing.
It is in our own best interests to stay safe at all times.
The WHAT, WHY & WHERE of the
arts scene in around Cape Town
see the arts + crafts map
