Review

Jill Trappler – Stoep walk about by Andrew Lamprecht.

Stoep a contemporary art exhibition by Jill Trappler at the South Gallery. Large painting in a space big enough to take them in with light to allow them to speak and be spoken about. Impressinonist , Expressionist the catagories is unresolved but it was discussed and in that discussion it was evident how grounded Jill was when she spoke. Stoep a subject that has a space in most traditional houses in South Africa. The area in the front of the house that you can rest and look out.

I walked around and got to know the art again. The space was more muted than it had been on the opening day as it was over cast. The clouds reminded us of the roof. The ladies started to move into the minimal contemporary space where the art was hung and I waited a while as I did not want to move in to soon. Then the talking started and I moved a bit closer so I could hear.

The first comment was on massage and if Jill had a massage, or was good at massage I can’t remember, it was brushed aside and the next topic was Expression versus impression and how she stood on that spectrum. She mentioned Rothko. She mentioned the colour and how the structure was not so important as the space was held. Matisse, Gauguin came up and then she described how she would invite artist into her family home when she was younger and work with them.

Andrew decided to go around the room one painting at a time and unpack them. Jill shared about her painting Stoep, the larger earthy coloured one. It was part of a series of works, some had been sent up to Johannesburg , that she had been working on. As I left the gallery space I registered how fragile I felt as I stood on the Stoep, the transition between interior and exterior space in the house, looking onto the Muizenberg Main road. The ability to just sit there and do nothing, that calmness was not in the space yet, the pattern of behavior had been forgotten as the Stoep had not been used for many years. The house seemed to have turned towards the back.

‘Afterimage’ Katherine Bull, Smith Gallery

Saturday 16th March 2019

I walked into the Smith Gallery as I had noticed on Face Book Katherine Bull was showing. I knew her as she did well in Art in Matric at Rustenburg Girls High she was a year before me. I was met by an intellectually worn yet happy looking assistant who had also gone to Michaelis Art School, same as Katherine. She liked Katherine as her worked with drawing and performance had made an impression on her studies.

I walked around the show and was drawn to artworks that showed hints of a reference, something that was more than just squiggle, had depth, a foresight. An image that in hindsight makes sense as it resonates with something you remember, something embedded in your vast memory banks that suddenly gets triggered. I got triggered in the back left corner of the gallery I saw special evolution. I also saw the faces of army men and I saw a more structured mark making than the other works in the show. I do like structure, I can get lost. I read the title, it said hidden animal or something and I thought the idea of special and the advancement of that was weirdly enticing. The odd being popular acceptable.