FUSION – group show
Eclectica Contemporary is situated in the heart of Cape Town’s CBD. It hosts an impressive, carefully chosen, group of Artists. The Gallery, with it multiple levels set in an historical heritage building, attempts to question old traditions with new voices in Contemporary Art.
In our ‘Fusion’ exhibition, we have selected a group of esteemed South African Artists. Each Artist has been chosen for their preferred medium, allowing us to showcase the variety of skills, styles and concepts we have on offer.
Aimee Lindeque
Aimee Lindeque’s art can be concisely summarised as intricate and imaginative works created in an eclectic style. She describes her creative process as a form of intuitive auto-pilot wherein she allows images, textures and ideas from her imagination and sub- conscious to flow into works which have a dense doodle-like quality. Her work is partly inspired by the onslaught of imagery individuals experience in the information age.
In 2017 she graduated from the UCT Michaelis School of Fine Art with a major in sculpture. Aimee is currently producing and exhibiting work in watercolour and ink. Their colour arrangement and focus on line detail is inspired by comic book artists such as Moebius. Aesthetically, her work experiments with the visual effects of detail and how cluttered imagery can create different interpretations depending on how far the viewer is from the artwork.
Aimee Lindeque
Blue August
2018
watercolour on paper
51.5 x 51 cm
SOLD
Nina Holmes
Landscape 1
2018
Acrylic & Oil on canvas
61 x 45.5 cm
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.
Georgia Lane
Georgia Lane first developed her resourceful and innovative approach to painting while living in Greece with limited access to resources. Her background in graphic design and marketing, as well as her love for art as she was growing up lay very firm foundations for her growth into the painter we know and love today. Having exhibited and been represented by prestigious galleries, Georgia Lane has presented solo bodies of work and been featured at the Cape Town Art Fair. Her work has been collected by international art lovers and is housed in New York, London, Chicago, Philadelphia, Sydney, Dubai, Stockholm, Cape Town and Johannesburg. She works from memory and as such, her paintings become a meditative process in which she participates with subconscious aspects striving foremost for honesty and simplicity of thought.
Georgia Lane
Veil
2009
acrylic on canvas
25.5 x 33.5 cm
Ben Coutouvidis
House in Hermanus, Kramer
Building Aggregate,
Kalk Bay
2018
mixed media
32.5 x 45 cm
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.
Hussein Salim
Born in Karim Sudan in 1966, Hussein Salim, found himself, along with other Sudanese artists and critics during the 1970s and 1980s conflict, exploring the dialogue between the importance of heritage and contemporary Sudanese art. Through his rich impasto paintings, Salim reflects this dialogue using personal symbolism of his dual African and Islamic identity, and through this coalescence his work creates a personal conversation with the viewer of the effects of a diasporic background. Here, his works allow a space for appreciation of diversity. Salim’s forms and colours combine, symbolising his own psyche and subliminal musings on topics of identity and heritage in the contemporary discourse. However, what is critical is that the shapes and forms in his work only leave just enough clues to catalyse thinking rather than explicitly demonstrate an idea.
Hussein Salim
Untitled (HS213)
2018
Acrylic on Canvas
27 x 19 cm
SOLD
Loyiso Mkize
Dignity
2017
Oil on Canvas
100 x 130 cm
SOLD
Loyiso Mkize
His ability to create Visual art throughout the varied arenas he participates in, carries with it an intention to communicate ideas that he finds most important in his life, the most prominent of which is preserving the African identity. His life work embodies the message of self-awareness, acknowledgment, strength and radical presence. It’s in this spirit that he hope his work can perhaps create a platform in which we can all, communicate freely.
This is a portrait painting with attitude. Like the narrative of it’s subject, it insists on the viewers’ attention. Combining the refined classic style of painting with abrupt cascades of floral motifs amplified by dark outlines, there is a playfulness between the real and unreal. This blend of styles is also symbolic of nature overcoming nurture.
Ley Mboramwe
Ley Mboramwe is a Cape Town based artist, originally from Kinshasa, DRC. He completed his degree in Fine Art at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa, overcoming the loss of his parents and managing to qualify in the midst of the war. Experiences of his time in the DRC, its suffering, beauty, politics, and culture is evident in his work and has shaped his approach to the themes and styles he uses.
The artist works primarily from the real. Mboramwe is assertive of his interaction with contemporary culture, current news and the world around him that act as stimuli for his work.
Ley Mboramwe
Paul Kagame Green Glass
2018
Acrylic on Canvas
80 x 80 cm
Qhama Maswana
Friends
2018
Acrylic on canvas
90.2 x 70 cm
Qhama Maswana
Qhama Maswana is a South African artist born in King Williams Town in 1991. He is currently based in the Eastern Cape where he produces work from his home studio. Maswana obtained a National Diploma in Fine Art in 2015 from the University of Fort Hare, where he refined his craft and developed the conceptual and visual language evident in his work.
Working intently to produce work that successfully conveys issues around beauty and other struggles witnessed on the continent, Qhama harnesses inspiration from Africa. Drawing inspiration from the people interacts with, he focuses on articulating the beauty and the strength they possess. The people depicted in his works often come from economically depressed communities – Qhama sees it as his duty as an artist to recreate the image of these bodies in a new light, one that portrays the royalty Maswana sees inside of them. Through painting, Qhama hopes to make the subjects he interacts with visible and present.
Leila Fanner
Leila Fanner is an abstract and figurative artist, whose work is influenced by mid-century modern styles, abstract expressionism and spiritual folk art of the world. Born in California to a South African artist and an African American musician, She was raised in South Africa and currently works from her studio in Riebeek West.
Leila is both a figurative and an abstract painter. Her creative inspiration is interwoven with dreams and personal dream symbols. Using the natural world as her subject, she explores her relationship with the material realm from both a metaphysical and spiritual viewpoint.
Leila Fanner
Gratitude
2018
mixed media collage
53 x 28 cm