Family values and the natural landscape
Artist Christine Jacobs traces the lines that connect and cocoon
Christine Jacobs feels like a compadre, a homie, a woman after my own heart, one who gave me permission to be myself when we recently spoke about her journey into fine art. I am always keen to see new and fresh work by artists based in Cape Town, especially if the artist in question is a Free State homie. “Enfold”, Jacobs’s recent exhibition at Southern Guild Gallery, is just one of her many milestones. “There [were] many fields before I got into fine arts,” Jacobs quips in our WhatsApp call, reflecting on her solo exhibition. As during an earlier interview, a week before opening, I feel comfortable around her.
When I entered the gallery space for the first interview, the petite artist ushered me in with a familiarity I understood, having also spent some time in the flat land of the Free State as a young girl. It is a confidence that most Cape Town folk pull off, without letting you in on the secret. Perhaps it is the mountain that grounds many of the people who live in the city and its surroundings. Maybe Cape Town is changing as the art landscape develops.
Coming from Joburg with its industrial, corporate, keep-it-moving sensibility, her lovely smile coupled with a warm hug settled me into our hour-and-15-minute chat, just before her exhibition’s opening. The high ceilings juxtaposed with the main attraction in the centre of the room exuded a peculiarity I hadn’t expected yet made total sense, as Jacobs encouraged me to interact with the felt sculpture. Drawing on her family history and values, Jacobs emphasised during both our interactions that this work was about the “traces of what has come before”.
A fine arts graduate from Stellenbosch University, she started out as a designer, running her own bespoke furniture design brand, Jacobs Collection, which was named best stand at 100% Design South Africa in 2019 and recognised as an emerging creative at Design Indaba the same year. This turn to fine art is significant for Jacobs in the sense that it would have not happened if she hadn’t been open to her process and story. “It's a trial-and-error base,” convincing me to think of fine art and design as inseparable. In retrospect, the time Jacobs spent on the charcoal drawings and the sculptural felt piece adds to her repertoire as an artiste, as one imagines the movements of her fingers and hands, felting the wool and marking it with a needle to render traces of the landscape she has grown to understand so intuitively.
The process of felting is one that requires patience and, importantly, technique. Jacobs creates an immersive experience, juxtaposing the exterior, creamy white woollen texture with a felted brown interior, much like the vast grounds of her family's Free State farm, full of Merino sheep. The functional felt sculpture, outstretched on the floor of the exhibition space, softens the gaze, emulating the hands, the landscape, and the creativity of those who contributed to its making —Jacobs's father, the farm workers, and the artist herself.
One of the major factors affecting farmers in 2023 has been veld fires and, in the Free State, North West, Western Cape and parts of KwaZulu-Natal, one of the issues has been the dearth of rain, leading to loss of land and livestock. “Fire burns the landscape, it touches the whole community,” she says.
In her body of work, one is able to connect the story of where and how it began for Jacobs. “My work holds this possibility of regeneration and growth,” Jacobs says as we end our conversation on a high note, excited about how our birth province, the Free State, has been so influential in our uncovering of our personal histories.