Art far from the madding crowd

“The canvas can do miracles,” croons Christopher Cross in his beautiful, wistful 1980s song, “Sailing”. DJ-Genesis’ amped, mash-up version seems pervasively on-air at the moment. It’s my current earworm — a welcome cue to explore and appreciate some art.   

In a marooned but often traffic-snarled subsection of the popular Cavendish shopping complex in Claremont, is Artland, an appropriately broad-canvas name for the multifaceted enterprise involving supplies, framing, workshopping and the transportation of treasured pieces (delightfully punted on the company’s van as Art-van-Gogh). The newly refurbished gallery space is branded Cavendish Contemporary, designed to exhibit works by the gallery’s meritorious or associated artists.

One of SA’s leading impressionists, Derric van Rensburg, has his studio here, and as the resident artist many of his striking but soothing pieces are scattered around segments of the gallery.

Their other resident artist is Zimbabwean-born Edwin Abasi. Since graduating from Harare’s School for Visual Arts he has experimented across about 50 pieces, he tells me, but an eight-year journey has led him, he says, “to finally believe I’m expressing my inner self, and what I’m seeing too much of today — suffering, especially of women and children”. Unsurprisingly, like in Sister’s Moods, many of his current subjects are wide-eyed, in shock, indicating despair at “a future that looks wrong for them”, Abasi explains.

Other of his surrealist works, Surprised Night, in particular, have a menacing undertone, a franticness, reminiscent of voodoo. How I See Myself reminds me of the tormented projection of self in many of Norman Catherine’s works: louche, confused and merging hyperbolic expressions. Catherine’s works depicted the affects of apartheid; Abasi’s comment on the deceptions and disconnections within SA today.

I marvel at Thea Darlow’s versatility. Her Trees series is compelling, the individual creations structurally similar — angular and proportionate, with clearly delineated focal points — but different either in tone or style. Apostles and Trees, for example, is impressionist, wispy, shadowy, capturing an early, misty winter morning; Blue Stone Pines, Lion’s Head is denser, harsh, with rigid segmentations, its bold colours representative of a blazing summer’s day. Intriguingly, these canvases all have a mysterious embellishment of squarish shapes, a nod, perhaps, to the magnificent geometry within the natural world.

Babylon is a fascinating multimedia piece, incorporating cuttings from art reference books in a collage effect. In one corner, for instance, are fragments of a work by Francis Gruber, the great 20th century French painter lauded for his images of the poor and destitute in his unique Nouveau Réalisme style. Alongside is a cropping of an unmistakable Piet Mondrian abstract — straight lines, right angles and primary colours representing the purity of the Dutch “De Stijl” (The Style) movement of the same era.

And then there is Oncology, a breathtakingly honest self-portrait depicting Darlow’s battle against cancer. Within its complexity her fear is palpable; so, too, is a grim determination.

Cavendish Contemporary will hold Darlow’s first solo exhibit in early-2025.

Art as altered state of consciousness

Around the corner from the ramparts of parliament, nestled almost beneath the buttresses of Table Mountain, is the small State-of-the-ART gallery.

Salon-like, it has some of Catherine Ocholla’s wondrous skyscape series. Nebulae I conveys the shifting dreaminess of the heavens, but its light gaiety and coherence is tempered by Nebulae II in which fragmentating clouds and the impending darkness may be a pointer to the threats of climate change, the signs of which are observable in the sky if only we would look. Tying into this, a departure from Ocholla’s skyscape theme is a diptych, Energize, which is almost postapocalyptic — the world on a road to nowhere. 

One of the gallery’s recent roster additions is young Capetonian Alexander Knox. His style is difficult to pinpoint. Realism, certainly, but the portraiture is stylised to allude to a world beyond, eliciting a more thoughtful response and strong emotions. Knox finds inspiration from postapocalyptic video games, and one of his pieces, The Farmer, connects me to images of the Ukraine war; its proud, resilient people surrounded by Russia’s ruination. How We Live Now is distinctly located within SA’s pervasive sense of insecurity. My favourite is Shelter, depicting a simple moment of pure mother-and-child joy despite aching poverty, conjuring Mary with baby Jesus.

Gallery manager Amy Rinquest-Barnes points me to some her favourites. Two Claude Chandler portraitures, Rebound and Peak, are on exhibit. They buzz with dynamism and vibrancy, having a touch of Fauvism in separating colour from subject. Chandler is also a street artist, one of his landmark creations being the Siya Kolisi mural in Salt River, Cape Town.

If all art is rooted in a passionate drive — a need — to create, emote and express, it is also true that some creative spaces exude something special, no matter their size or location. Although they may fly under the radar of many art lovers, both State-of-the-ART and Cavendish Contemporary are unquestionably rewarding places to visit.

My art itch is soothed. Now, I’m hoping that earworm goes away.

State of the ART Gallery, 50 Buitenkant Street, Cape Town.Tel: 061 129 1899

Cavendish Contemporary, Heritage House, 20 Dreyer Street, Claremont, Cape Town.Tel: 021 671 6001