ELIZE VOSSGÄTTER

(b. 1981 Johannesburg, South Africa)

“The message of my work is waveringly optimistic and aims to show the innate balance of the transformation of our present reality; seeking to find our position in it.”

Elize Vossgätter’s work is concerned with our unnatural relationship to the natural environment.

Her primary medium is natural beeswax, which she soaks in toxic chemicals, impregnates with synthetic pigment and then works onto the canvas using heat. The constant tension between the organic and inorganic is palpable. Gouging into the multilayered and multicoloured wax sediment – an exercise in carving – the outcome is a surface structure reminiscent of a relief: a testament to sensual organic forms which evoke the physical laws of the natural world, from which she draws her visual vocabulary.

Recent bodies of work include ‘Natural Order’ and ‘Artificial Selection’. They focus on our failing cultural, political and environmental structures and the flux of finding a new balance in this post-natural world.

SOLO SHOWS

2022     Liminal Space, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2021     Artificial Selection, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2020     Natural Order, part of the Cubicle Series, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2017     limp, Smith Studio, Cape Town, South Africa

2015     In the end we’re all to blame, Commune1, Cape Town, South Africa

2013     Once there was, and once there was not, AVA, Cape Town, South Africa

2012     Sterntaler, AVA, Cape Town, South Africa

SELECTED GROUP SHOWS

2022     Spring, group show, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

              Dak’art, biennale of contemporary African art, Dakar, Senegal

            Things I’d like to remember, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2021     Summer 2021, Everard Read, London, UK

            Oasis: 25th anniversary, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2020     Us, digital exhibition, Everard Read, South Africa

            STILL, digital exhibition, Everard Read, South Africa & UK

            win/win, exhibition of the official acquisitions of the State of Saxony, Leipzig, Germany

2019     Verorten/ Entorten, Projektwohnung, Krudebude, Leipzig, Germany

            Winter, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

            Zeitgleich/Zeitseichen, PingPong Kunstraum, Leipzig, Germany

           Voila, Halle 14, Leipzig, Germany

2018     Home for the holidays, Summer Show, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2017     Buttersäure Senf, Pilotenkueche, Leipzig, Germany

            BiPolar gallery, Leipzig, Germany

            Another Antipodes Urban Axis Exhibition, Freemantle, Australia

2016     Surface and Subtext, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

            Open Studios, Art Omi, New York, USA

2015     Summer show, Everard Read gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

            Two, Smith Studio, Cape Town, South Africa

2014     Golden Haze, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa

            Rust en Vrede, Cape Town, South Africa

2013     Summer show , Casa Labia, Cape Town, South Africa

            One in a Million, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa

           Archives and Collection, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa

2012     I’d rather be Swimming, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa

            Impressions and Responses, Galerie Miz, Istanbul, Turkey

           Our Fathers, AVA, Cape Town, South Africa

2010     Amani Festival of Visual Arts, Khayelitsha, South Africa

            Vuleka Art competition and exhibition, Belville, South Africa

            Conceptual Matters & Matters Conceptual, Erdmann Contemporary, Cape Town, South Africa

ART FAIRS

2020     Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, South Africa

2016     AKAA in association with Smith Studio

Cape Town Art Fair, with Smith Studio, ‘The Conservationist’s Dream’

2015     1:54 Contemporary Art Fair, London,  with Qubeka Bead Studio

Cape Town Art Fair, with Commune1 gallery

2012     Cape Town Art Fair, in association with AVA gallery

Joburg Fringe festival, in association with FNB Johannesburg Art Fair

RESIDENCIES

June-Sept 2017 Pilotenkueche, Leipzig

June-July 2016 Art Omi, New York State

June-July 2012 Galeriremiz, Istanbul