Bettie Coetzee

Bettie’s current focus is on experimental/conceptual photography following a career ofdedication to the visual arts as a writer/art critic on a free lance basis for about 30 years. She worked for local magazines and newspapers, as well as lecturing in Art History at the University of Johannesburg. She completed an Honours and Masters degree in Art History, after working at the Johannesburg Art Museum, Joubert Park in the 1970’s. Photography became a late passion in her life, when, in her 60’s she fell in love with a camera, after looking through a long lens at the sand dunes of Sossusvlei during a hiking holiday. The pen had to make way for camera, computer and processing software.

The term Fundamental Rationalism in itself poses a paradox. Fundamentalism refers to the rigid clinging to values (specifically known in religion), established in the past as relevant for a certain period, as the only truth.  In the Visual arts these thoughts of relativity have been examined – not only consciously but also intuitively, by artists like Picasso and those who followed. In Bettie’s series of photographic double exposures, she explored the same concept of the simultaneous experience of spacetime under the title, Binneste Buite/Inside Out.

Carla Janse van Rensburg

Carla Janse van Rensburg is a multi-disciplinary artist working from Cape Town, South Africa. They graduated from Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2019. They explore themes of transcendence, the divine feminine, ritual, magic and divination in an attempt to initiate healing. They are interested in reflections; the internal state reflects the external state, the macrocosm and microcosm, and vice versa.

Looking at Zeno’s theory –  “Zeno’s paradoxes demonstrate the impossibility of motion – distance can be divided infinitely – can an infinite process end?” they believe that the very thought of measuring infinity provides a contradiction.

Much of new age ideology refers to the concept of timelessness and the ‘infinite now’ which can be experienced through practices such as meditation. These prints are based upon drawings which were made while in deep meditational states during a time of a call for transformation. In these meditational states, time and space do not exist, everything is still. The images flow and transform, beings connect yet separate, all swimming in the cesspool of creation, all illustrating the paradox of the illusion of separation.

Cathy Milner

Cathy is an artist working and teaching art from her studio on a farm between Paarl and Stellenbosch. She studied Printmaking at Michaelis under Stephen Inggs and Pippa Skotnes. She worked in many mediums but focused on drawing, painting in ink and etching. Her work centers around aspects of women’s experiences relating to

issues of discrimination and marginalization in society. This includes her personal experiences relating to the ideal female body, patriarchy, aspects of motherhood and sexuality. She draws parallels of the personal and juxtaposes these with popular culture and the more generalized experience of being a female in modern society.

Cathy’s artwork deals with female identity, and what it means to assume multiple identities as a woman in modern society. Using printmaking and drawing as the frame of communication, she grapples with the idea – that while she can only speak her experience as a white South African woman living in the post millennial era – is ”there a commonality or sisterhood between ALL woman, from all cultures and communities, simply because we are all female?’

Cheryl Traub-Adler

Cheryl Traub-Adler was born in South Africa and currently lives and works in Cape Town where she is establishing an Artists Residency. She has featured in many group shows. Most recent of which include, “Mhloti Ya Wansati / women’s tears”, a performance ritual with Lizette Chrimme, “New Guard Group Exhibition at ArtB Gallery and PPC Imaginarium an installation in Fashion.

Her work negotiates a meeting point between performance, embodied practice and localized site-specific disruption. She blurs between installation, painting, printmaking, fashion and photography.  She is driven by a continual discovery of new forms, learning and finding new ways of projecting a unique vision into the world, through collaborative and social intervention.

Cheryl uses embossed motherboard variations as printing plates, or ‘artists proofs.’ Proof that the artist still needs to test, verify and hold onto logical structures within an irrational approach. A place where reason underpins motive, and the decision maker falls somewhere between. These square templates are 24.3cm by 24.3cm, made of copper, numbers and code inlaid into the typography of the board. An object of rational beauty, viewed illogically as pathways and nodes. A vital, yet redundant piece of machinery. For these prints she has used the metaphor of the computer and coding to describe how Fundamentalist Rationalism can be reinterpreted in the time of technology.

David Madlabane

David received a certification from Artist Proof Studios for printmaking and has exhibited at Art Fairs with them.

Walking in the streets of Johannesburg, he looks closely at the and draws inspiration from, demolished structures of colonial buildings, with their basic architectural skeleton exposed. David’s portraits are infused with the deconstructed architectural ruins. He uses contour lines on the ‘skin’ of his subjects inspired by the lines of finger prints – to play on the idea of identity and uniqueness. The lines within the artworks signify past and present thoughts and the environment they interact with. Portraits are combined with elements of architecture to create a juxtaposition of organic and inorganic creating a dialogue between two seemingly oppositional things. The red within his artworks represents the blood shed of Colonialism and the yellow represents the wealth of our Land and a sense of optimism and persistence.  His body of work examines his identity, environment and the elements of architecture to construct a new narrative that observes the daily challenges of people in his community – by looking back we can, perhaps, move forward.

Erin Sweeney

Erin Sweeny is a Johannesburg born artist currently studying at Michaelis School of Fine Art. Their work explores the potential of process as product often influenced by systems and restraint. Erin’s work features two etchings made by feeding pigeons on a resin covered plate. Their movements as they fight and peck for food is immortalized. Fleeting and seemingly meaningless actions become definite marks that can be recreated, over and over again. The works offer a new visual for the chaotic and rushed energy of feeding pigeons.

Fumani Khumalo

Fumani Khumalo is an all-around creative. He is currently employed at the digital agency, VML, working as an Art Director on South Africa’s biggest brands. He is a passionate professional who believes in placing creativity at the heart of everything that he does.

It is said, to acquire or know a second language is to have a second soul. It is actually quite interesting how language shapes our perception and experiences of the world. When we speak, our vocal cords create vibrations which we send flying through the air as pressure waves. Over time we have added meaning to these vibrations to express and share our thoughts, feelings and ideas. Language is itself a reality or medium and not a transparent one at that. In Fumani’s art he unravels the language that people use as a means of communication and how that dialogue creates an individual’s experience of the world that they live in.  Fumani spends his time analyzing and unravelling the nuances of our everyday dialogue and pours that knowledge into his art.

Johann Booyens

Johann Booyens received his M-Tech Design in Printmaking from Cape Peninsula University of Technology in  2015 and his since participated in multiple exhibitions locally and abroad. Most recently exhibiting a solo exhibition at Natasha Stadler Gallery in 2018, titled Location, Location, Location.

“As al art is phenomenology, i.e. that which appears to the senses, al artists are reporting on the truth, not truth itself. Contradictory Aristotle claimed that the aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. Both these opposites attract me.

My work is concerned with the increasingly complex relationship we as humans have with our natural environment. As we exploit the natural in favour of the built environment, one would think our understanding of systems found in nature are deepened. I observe the opposite. Whilst we mine, excavate, farm , nature needs to increasingly yield to our expectations. We need now, more than ever to re-establish a profound collective ontology to honour, respect and live with nature. We need to observe and learn from natural systems if we are to successfully feed, clothe and house near 10 billion people.” –  Johann Booyens

Marilise van Wyk

Marelise is a Cape Town artist who lives and works in Simon’s Town.  She initially studied Psychology and worked as a psychologist for a few years before deciding to study art.  She has recently retired from full time art teaching to further pursue her art career.

Marelise’s creative process has always been inspired by the cycle of life and the evidence of the passing of time – extinctions developing into new creations, decaying into extinctions again… “The unlikely beauty of the weathered historical structures and the graveyard in my own environment became, for me, the embodiment of this ongoing process of extinction and change. Each of these structures has a story that influenced the story of other structures/people/cultures. In the same way every person has a story that determines their lives and decisions. I also notice this ongoing process in organic destruction over time – decaying plant material, fossils, rock structures and erosion.”

She is inspired by textures that are formed by erosion, corrosion and disintegration in nature as a result of the passing of time. Hence the reference to erosion, destruction, excavation in her artwork. Through the use of imagery referring to historical structures, fossils, organic materials, strata – she attempts to relate to the paradox of expanding into the past.

Michael Selekane

Michael Tshepo Selekane was born in 1986 in Uitvlught, a rural village based in Mpumalanga. After he matriculated he met Thabo Pitso, who introduced him to the Tshwaraganang Arts School in Mabopane. During his time there, Selekane was introduced to the Ifa Lethu Foundation, where he was mentored by artists who participated and contributed to the resistance art movement. In 2008 Michael enrolled at the Tshwane University of Technology (Faculty of Arts) (TUT) for Fine and Applied Arts Tech.  Michael has exhibited his work both nationally and internationally. He has been represented at the FNB Joburg Art Fair, Turbine Art Fair and The National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.

Michael Selekane explores the labour conditions experienced by the masses who migrate across our country in search of work. These individual face practical, financial and safety challenges. Due to their economic situations they are not always able to dictate the terms of their employment and ensure they are not placed in negligent working conditions. Their employers hold the power; they chose to ignore and turn a deaf ear to the problems surrounding the work environment they provide. It is here where basic rights are pushed aside for financial gain.

Minenkulu Ngoyi

Minenkulu using silkscreen because of the poster like quality, created these artworks based on his experience after attending a student council campaign at Wits University for the 2019 national elections. He took some of the things that were said and interpreted them visually to show that nothing is what it seems. 

“Voetsek, those that came by boat must go back by boat” is one of the statements said by an Economic Freedom Fighter Student Council (EFFSC) member. The said statement is motivated by the Land expropriation without compensation program that various South African political parties are involved in and that is currently very topical. This print was influenced by a postage stamp depicting the arrival of Jan Van Riebeeck by boat at the Cape in 1652.    

“Pasop, ons sal met jou honde begin” is another statement said by an Economic Freedom Fighter Student Council member. This statement was said in a different language, so I decided to translate it into Afrikaans to direct the message to a certain audience. The print is influenced by a Rare South African stamp of a springbok printed in 1930. Instead of a springbok I used a boerboel because it’s mostly associated with South African farmers.

Noeleen Kleve

Noeleen has a Diploma in graphic design and a Bachelors in Visual Art. She has been part of many group shows including, FAP19 Pop Up in Johannesburg, Nano 1.3 at Barnard gallery and Paper Works a pop up in Cape Town. In 2014 and 2012 she interned at Warren Editions.

In an endeavor to locate the elusive space of longing through map-like etchings and imagery, Noleene’s visuals translations evoke an exploration and a search: an experience of the liminal or in between. A neither here nor there…a passage of transformation and searching. Through the repetitive process of inking and printing, both the process, and the artwork itself, allude to a ‘liminal of longing’.

The fragmented map(s) may initially appear as a representation of an actual territory. They are however, made up of a composite of five geographic locations – each imbued with meaning borne from an encounter or journey. A map of an imagined territory. Both reality as well as illusion; fact and fiction. Nothing is as it seems, as the map of (my) reality is not reality. The description of the thing is not the thing itself.

Tusevo Landu

Tusevo Landu is a young aspiring artist based in Johannesburg. He was born in the DRC and moved to South Africa in 2016. He finished school in 2017 and is now working through his second year at Artist Proof Studio, majoring in printmaking. He is a chosen candidate for the Nkhensanin Rihlampfu Mentorship Program, where he was also introduced to sculpture.

He is inspired by the fact that Africa is the place where the oldest human skull was discovered. Tusevo believes that because of that fact, we as human beings are all African people, we all carry the same genes from a woman that lived, in Africa, dozens of years ago.

Tusevo looks at certain communities that he has come in contact with. He is fascinated by the amount of children that lack father figures and how women/mothers of the community seem fulfill that role. These women end up being the provider, comforter, a person that you go to for guidance and support. This is where his themes of comfort and amour stem from.

Zolani Siphungela

Zolani Siphungela is an artist born in South Africa in 1986.  From an Early age, Zulani expressed his talent for art by drawing in sand and on objects that surrounded him. As a teenager he began sketching from his imagination and later honed his skills by completing a Diploma in Fine Art at the Walter Sisulu University, situated in the Eastern Cape. He found that studying limited his ability to conceptualise, He did however learn to appreciate Print making techniques which is his favourite method of Art making.

In early 2010 Zolani decided to relocate to Cape Town where he works as a local artist in a studio at the Castle of Good Hope at an NPO company called Good Hope Art Studios.