#an uncomplicated curator
My goal
To encourage an awareness that artwork needn’t be new to have a present-day impact.
How has this idea evolved?
From 2022 to 2024, I lived
in the UK. There I realised that artists everywhere face similar complex exhibiting
challenges – the stress and expense of creating new work, high exhibiting costs,
and a weak art market with poor sales which sometimes leaves an artist out of
pocket.
Also, many exhibition
writings, in what Grayson Perry calls 'International Art English', often only serve
to create a veil of confusion that alienates the viewer from the
artwork.
On my return I realised that I must use my SA artworld network and editing/writing skills to assist local artists in building up their exhibiting profiles in an uncomplicated way. Inviting artists to exhibit their earlier works within a fresh and contemporary context takes away the pressure of conceiving a theme and the costs of making new work.
And so, in January 2025, I began a new project as #an uncomplicated curator.
First exhibition 20 - 24 March 2025: BITS OF JOZI _ catalogue here
My curating history
2018 to the present I am a member of The Printing Girls (TPG) - a network of South African female artist/printmakers. The artists range from emerging to professionals, as well as master printmakers.. Key to the TPG ethos is that all members receive equal opportunities under their umbrella. Ongoing, TPG organises and curates themed exhibitions of original prints by its members.
In 2021 I was on the admin team of TPG. That year I co-curated four exhibitions and organised three print exchanges.
2018 - 2019 I assisted Sharon Sampson in running FAP (The South African Fine Art Print Fair).
2013 - 2018 I was a co-founder and the director of outoftheCUBE, one of the first purely virtual art galleries in SA.
This project ran for five years and introduced online solo exhibitions by artists whose work interested us. We grouped specific exhibitions thematically supported by a curator's statement. On closing, the site contained almost 90 full online exhibitions.
1993 – 2013 I worked as an art consultant in the South African art world - my specialist field of interest lay in our country's contemporary original prints.
I promoted and marketed prints for The Caversham Press, and later also for The Artist's Press, and Tim's Print Studio (Tim Foulds).
Curating projects and their catalogues
2021 The Printing Girls (TPG)
Co-curated exhibitions
October TPG@ SA Print Gallery at The South African Print Gallery, Cape Town
August Mother Nature in Monotype at White River Gallery, Mpumalanga
August #TPG21
at The Art Room, Johannesburg
March
New Girls on the Block at the Pretoria
Arts Association
Print exchanges
August The Daphne Project
July Eco-longing
February #TPG First Print Exchange
2020 Aspire Art Auctions
I curated the auction ASPIRE X Caversham: 30 Years in 90 Lots consisting of 90 original art prints from The Caversham Press (KZN) at Aspire Art Auctions (Johannesburg).
Catalogue here.
2015 The Grenchen Print Triennale
I was invited to organise and curate an exhibition of around 100 South African prints for the Swiss-based Grenchen Print Triennial as their 2015 International Exhibition.
The prints were selected from five professional printmaking studios and two independent printmaker/artists, creating the exhibition South African Art Prints.
On its return from Switzerland, it was exhibited at Warren Studios in Cape Town under the title There and Back/South African Art Prints.
Catalogue here.
2013 - 2018 outoftheCUBE
Throughout its duration, outoftheCUBE presented almost 90 online solo exhibitions grouped thematically. We also participated in five art fairs as a gallery and curated three 'real-life' exhibitions, all featuring its artists.
Catalogues:
'Real life' outoftheCUBE exhibitions
2014 TAF14 (Johannesburg Turbine Art Fair)
2015 Response: artists' reflections in print (Fried Contemporary, Pretoria)
2016 KKNK16 (Oudtshoorn, Cape)
Online outoftheCUBE exhibitions
2013 A sense of place
Artist's catalogues
Colleen Alborough (an artist's studio visit)
Monique Rudman van Rooyen (exhibited by outoftheCUBE at TAF17)