“Breathe”, a group exhibition showcasing artworks by Desrae Chimes Saacks, Nina Holmes, Natasha Barnes, Ben Coutouvidis, Mary Visser and Albert Courtse. In the midst of the rat race we live in, art is a breath of fresh air, reminding us of the the essential things in life that we often overlook. This exhibition offers its audience a space to be present. It’s a space of quiet contemplation and meditation in which we can allow ourselves to simply breathe.

Exhibition opens 4 April 2019, 18h00 @ 69 Burg Street, Cape Town

Nina Holmes

As a painter, Nina’s materials are never limited to canvas and oil, instead she works loosely and around expectations. Often using pieces of material or repurposed upholstery, the process of altering or intervening to create work is approached through what she terms as “surrealist automatism”, while also allowing for the inevitable influence of found images, photographs and borrowing of techniques and inspirations from other paintings. She enjoys working on multiple paintings, with work spread out across her studio in Woodstock. The working process is occasionally accompanied by a grand symphonic soundtrack and sometimes with silence. There is careful thinking and intense working through various influences and concepts.

Nina Holmes[Dis]connect
2019
acrylic and oil on canvas
155 x 124.5 cm
SOLD

Nina Holmes
Blizzard
2019
acrylic and oil on canvas
202 x 174 cm
SOLD

Ben Coutouvidis

In 1993, Ben Coutouvidis graduated from Rhodes University with a distinction and has exhibited at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, as well as group shows throughout Cape Town and Johannesburg. Well known for his atmospheric distilling paintings depicting the everyday and mundane; he recently began exploring sculptural mediums such as wood and metal.

Extending through his work is a motif of earth and finding ones’ place within and around landscapes. Consistent in Ben’s exploration is a consideration of how human interaction shapes and marks land, with an interest in textures and environments for habitation and adventure.

Desrae Chimes Saacks

Jenna Wessels

Jenna Wessels is a Cape Town born artist who completed her degree in Fine Ary at Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2018. Her work explores contrasting tensions and liminal spaces with interest in notions of the ‘authentic self’, the necessity for disillusion in order for transformation and processes pertaining to the acceptance of the shadow, the work goes on a journey of deconstruction and reintegration.Fragments of canvas sewn and pinned together play with the layering and revealing of varying explorations of repetitive mark making. This seeks to highlight the cyclical and fragmented nature in which we conceive and understand ourselves and the world.

Jenna Wessels
Between
2018
Pins on canvas
110 x 90 cm

Mary Visser

Born in 1971, Mary Visser graduated in 1992 with a BFA from Rhodes University, Grahamstown. She paints abstracted urban landscapes drawing on her ongoing interest in city spaces, objects and signs. Mary explains, “I am in love with the process of making paintings. The sensuous delight of colour and mark thrills me. I’m on the hunt as I engage with the surface for those little moments of exhilaration.”

Natasha Barnes

Natasha Barnes, born in 1969, is one of South Africa’s most celebrated Abstract artists. Natasha’s paintings take inspiration found in her travels and her love for the rich African images surrounding her life. Her experience is transferred onto canvas in a myriad of expressive brush stroke and harmony of colour. Natasha’s paintings are abstract in that her creative process is to absorb the sensation of her physical experience then transfer to the canvas without looking at the subject.

“Every painting a door to travel through, a simple reaction of what is happening in my mind. Some days are quiet – some days are abstract.” – Natasha Barnes

Albert Coertse

Albert Coertse is an artist, originally from Pretoria, whose paintings have evolved from figurative formations into abstraction with a focus on geometric composition and refracted landscape imagery. Coertse was originally educated in communication design at the Open Window, and later also studied interactive design at Malmö Högskola, Sweden. Upon moving to Cape Town, he also obtained a bachelors degree in Industrial Design from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.

“I consider art as a self-learning tool and a way to keep stretching what I want to know of things.” – Albert Coertse

Albert Coertse
En Route
2015
Oil on MDF/Board
150.5 x 75 cm
SOLD

Albert Coertse
Elsewhere
2016
Oil on MDF:Board
170 x 80 cm
SOLD