Lock Down Letters - Nicolaas Maritz

Nicolaas Maritz is one of my favourite South African artists and you can see his work when you visit the Kalk Bay Modern Gallery.

Nicolaas paints using enamel paint and his subject matter is often the South African landscape. he uses shapes and colours and creatures that really are his unique style and signature. The more you see his work the easier it is to recognize it.  He uses shape and colour with boldness and his work often has both reality and the magical or imagined together, side by side.

These two portrait works come from his most resent collection called 40 faces. These works were on exhibit as one exhibition and were extraordinary.

These portraits speak into the obsession with the Selfie and kind of explore the rather more realistic versions of people he has met over the years. These faces are meant to be more realistic than the fake kind of self reflection we see on social Media platforms.

Nicolaas grew up in an artistic family. His mother was a ceramic artist and worked with clay while his father was an architect. Do you remember what an architect does? He was surrounded by art and artists and his work has been influenced by his life growing up in SA as well as by the various artists he came into contact with.

Lock Down Letters - Artists (in South Africa) Series

Cubism

All through the history of art, artists attempted to capture something of the world and the environment in their work. All the while they were exploring ideas and materials ; ways of doing art and many of these artists were bushing up against the boundaries of what art is " supposed" to be. I guess we can say that artists , art doing the same kinds of things today. That is why the question , " what is art for?" or  " what is art? " are valid questions to ask. 

Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were the creators of an  artist movement called Cubism. They were the very first people to explore this kind of art form. Today we are familiar with seeing work like this, but back in the 1908, no one had ever seen this art form before. It was shocking and strange. 

What is cubism exactly?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlNf5XZDcQs

The artist would study the subject or the thing they were painting. Usually these were people. 

The artists would break the object up into geometric shapes and then they would put the subject back together again. Often, the shapes were drawn and painted from different viewpoints or perspectives. This is called analytical cubism because the artist analysed or studied the subject from different perspectives. The work is not realistic at all but we can see the object and what it is.   

Cubism is one of the most influential art moments of all time.  Artists are still influenced bu this style today. 

An African work of art by Mohamed Berkane is an example of modern cubist work.

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/art-cubism-africa-mohamed-berkane.html 

Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef is a well known South African artist. He was born in 1886 and died in 1957.

He is best known for and loved for his landscapes. He was born in 1886 and died in 1957. 

Some of his work has a hint of cubism in his use of breaking up the spaces into geometric shapes.

Check this work out. 

https://za.pinterest.com/pin/496170083923588242/ 

Pierfneef . journeyed very much towards cubism in his life work.

https://images.app.goo.gl/vHWezp2uQz6uXfhu6

See if you can find out more about Pierneef or any other South African artists who were influenced by Cubism. 

Look at Cecil Skotnes ; Maud Sumners; 

How do you think African art might have influenced cubism? 

Lockdown Letters - Artists who shape the land

Land Art

Land art or environmental art is a kind of art form where the artist explores visual ideas on the land. They often uses nature to create their work or in the case of South African artist , Strijdom van der Merwe, use things they find along the way.

https://www.strijdom.com/

His artworks include the use of sand, water , stone , wood and rock. 

Click the link above to enjoy some of his extraordinary works.

One of my favourite  land artists is  Andy Goldsworthy.  Andy uses leaves and twigs and flowers and all sorts of large pieces from  nature to create his work.  His work can be colourful or it might be simply just the browns of the bark of the tree or the white of the stones. His work is soft and enjoying to the eye. 

This Youtube video shares some of his beautiful work. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I59Ar1s4ZZE

Other land artists include Carl Andre, Alice Aycock, Walter De Maria, Hans Haacke, Michael Heizer, Nancy Holt, Ana Mendieta, Dennis Oppenheim, Andrew Rogers, Charles Ross, Alan Sonfist, and James Turrell.

Perhaps you would like to check them out?

Land art has often got an architectural feel to it because it is just so huge. Many artists will leave their work nature will erase it as time goes by. 

Land art really only began its art development in the 1960"s - about 50 years ago. Artists were exploring and using their nature art to protest against the materialism of the time, much like we protest and shout our that our environment is in trouble, today.

Here is a link to some f the early Land Artists and their work. It is lovely to see which country they come from 

 https://magazine.artland.com/top-10-land-art-and-earthwork-pioneers/

Lockdown Letters - South African Artists

Andrew Tshabangu

Andrew Tshabangu grew up in the huge, sprawling Apartheid designed, Soweto in Johannesburg, in the 1970's. This meant that  he grew up in the time of Apartheid. He was introduced to art and the things of art in the form of poetry , music and of course visual art at a community centre in Soweto. Through these arts he came to understand the terrible times he was born into. 

When Andrew completed school he longed to study drama but like many schools for black children in the 1970's, he was not well enough prepared to study drama at University. He joined an art centre in Alexandra township and there be worked on photography. 

Because of the very turbulent times that Andrew grew up in, he was aware of the power of photography in telling the stories of everyday people. He was influenced by artists who went before him but at some point he had to decide what kind of artwork he wanted to reflect. Like many black artists of his day, he was recognized outside South Africa before he was noticed at home.  

Andrew Tshabangu continues to tell the story of everyday South Africans with his photographs today. 

His work is real and powerful. 

Visit some of his work online and see if his work is something you might enjoy.