In June 2016 Lizamore & Associates hosts two solo exhibitions; Watermense/Water people by Hannelie Coetzee and A Hollow Drumming of Wings by Stephen Rosin. These exhibitions will be opened by Dilip Menon and Gordon Froud respectively, on 2 June 2016 at 18:00.
Hannelie Coetzee sees herself as an ecological artist that studies the effects of man-made systems on the natural environment. “We need to re-learn the logic of nature in order to continue mindfully,” says Coetzee. She aims to go further by finding possible solutions through interacting with affected individuals, building a network useful to the issue at hand, and shedding some light on the problem by creating art.
With Watermense/Water people, the artist focused on the use and abuse of, and distribution of water. For this body of work, the artist walked along the natural streams crisscrossing throughout Johannesburg. In the process she interacted with the individuals and communities who were there in one way or another. She listened to their stories and photographed them and their surroundings. These images find form though engravings of portraits on discarded doors, stencils on found-maps, woodblocks (and prints) made from old scaffolding planks, amongst other mediums.
Through recycling discarded doors from regenerated buildings in Johannesburg, Coetzee aims to urge viewers to rethink how mankind will live with limited natural resources well into the future. She sees even contaminated water as a resource which can be purified. Coetzee’s artworks become a vehicle outside and inside the gallery to expand this conversation around the de-romanticization of the urban landscape.
Alongside Coetzee, A Hollow Drumming of Wings by Stephen Rosin will be exhibited. In this body of work, Rosin interrogates the idea of collectivism in humanity and questions the possible negative effects it has on the freedom and identity of the individual. He draws inspiration from his experience as a beekeeper and his knowledge of the organizational structure which exists within the bee hive.
In a hive, the Queen rules supreme and the worker bee’s individual identity and liberty is sacrificed for the group and conformity is valued above freedom. Control of the group dynamic is imperative. Rosin’s use of the bee hive is a metaphor for the current human condition. He brings this knowledge of the bee hive in conversation with his artwork, through which he makes a wry comment on the idea of collectivism in mankind.
The relationship between the Queen and the hive, resembles that of individuals who are entangled in man-made power structures. This property of apparent sentience in a colony of social insects/humans acting as a single organism, each insect/human performing a specific role for the good of the whole, owes its efficacy to the hierarchical nature of the hive. He sees his work as a vehicle for exposing this ‘show’ as the spectacle that it is and is fast fashioning himself as somewhat of a court-jester on the local art scene.
These exhibitions open at 18h00 on Thursday 2 June 2016 and end on 25 June 2016 at Lizamore & Associates, 155 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood, Rosebank. Please join us at the opening for drinks, live entertainment and to meet the artists. Hannelie Coetzee will be hosting a walkabout each Saturday which will begin at 11am at the gallery and move to one of the many water streams which inspired her artworks. See below for the programme.
4 June – visit Nirox sculpture park
11 June – Visit the Wilds, Hillbrow
18 June – visit Field and Study Park in Sandton
25 June – visit Ferndale Spruit.
For further information, visit the Lizamore & Associates website.
