KAREN ELKINGTON

West Coast Silence

14 September – 13 October | Everard Read Franschhoek

Everard Read Franschhoek is proud to present a new solo exhibition by Karen Elkington entitled West Coast Silence.

To request the catalogue please click HERE.

Opening reception: Saturday 14th of September at 11AM.

The body of work West Coast Silence is less a representative approach to landscape and more an exploration of the dualities of our relationship with our ‘landscape’. The Romantic artists of late 18th, early 19th century Europe sought to portray nature in all its magnificence as a spiritual escape from the failings and despair of the human world. Certainly, the starkly beautiful scenery around Elands Bay on the West Coast of South Africa can be represented in such a light. However, honesty demands that contemporary landscape paintings reflect a darker reality; the vulnerability of the natural world to human greed and exploitation and the threat consequently posed to our future existence. Look beyond the immediate beauty of the West coast and it is apparent that it is being plundered for profit in every direction; from the destructive seismic exploration for oil out to sea, the fishing rights sold out to the big players destroying poor local communities and decimating fish levels, to the diamond mining operations dredging once pristine beaches and pumping toxic waste into the sea.

The paintings in this exhibition are intentionally deceptive. They can be read for their escapism alone, for the big sky drama and poetic solitude of the Romantic tradition, however the visual language of composition, brushwork and symbolism point to an alternative interpretation. The mix of figurative and abstract disturbs the sense that we understand our world and scribbled layered marks speak of ugliness, confusion and corruption. Similarly, the exhibition colour palette pulls in two directions, clashing the reassuring connotations of pale pinks with the warning ones of primary red. The few human structures in the paintings are compositionally dwarfed by the natural elements and appear to be empty or dissolving suggesting human inconsequence and impermanence. Small couches set in strange inside outside spaces represent the apathy and attachment to material comfort that prevents us acting decisively to protect our environment. The couch installation alludes to the land and ocean deals ‘stitched up’ behind the scenes and the red tape of vested bureaucracy that silences protest rather than safeguards against exploitation. We are so often ‘armchair environmentalists’, despairing but not doing, always with the convenient excuse that the problem is too great.

The written text that appears in all the paintings adds to the duality of meaning running through the exhibition and can be read either literally or contextually. The words ‘peace and quiet’ refer both simply to that contemplative moment alone in nature as the sun goes down and more complexly to our failure to speak up to protect our environment. It is common to hear people say they just want to get on with their own lives, don’t want to be disturbed by larger problems as nothing can be done. Similarly, the time of day is repeatedly referenced both in a literal sense and in the sense that time to act is running out, we are perhaps environmentally ‘in the midnight hour’.

West Coast Silence: a silence that is restorative and beautiful for the individual, but destructive when multiplied and collective. – Karen Elkington, 2024

EVERARD READ - 20 Huguenot Road
Franschhoek, 7690
South Africa
+27 21 876 2446 l fgallery@everard.co.za

Opening hours:
Monday – Sunday 09:30 - 16:00
Please contact us to make an appointment outside of these hours.