CATHY ABRAHAM l A Sacred Matter

CATHY ABRAHAM 

A Sacred Matter

16 February – 08 March 2025 | Everard Read Franschhoek

Everard Read Franschhoek is proud to present a new solo exhibition by Cathy Abraham entitled A Sacred Matter.

To request the catalogue please click HERE

Opening reception: Sunday 16^th of February @ 11AM

"My practice is deeply rooted in repetition as a material prayer. Invoking transformation and healing, these prayers address past sufferings that continue to haunt the present. Appearing as shadows in the overlapping ‘ghosts’ of colliding brushstrokes, such hauntings give form to otherwise formless traumas, the apparitions tracing the wound in its residue. My unfolding engagement with numbers, symmetries, and ritual action is meditative and devotional, a means of transcending the self towards an understanding of the interconnected, miraculous nature of all beings. These reflections find resonance in Kabbalah’s numerical interpretation of holy texts, where every Hebrew letter is given a value, and each number, in turn, is lent a spiritual significance. 18 and its multiples, which symbolise life in mystic tradition, are central to my process, as is 8 for the transcendence of the physical and 13 for the attributes of love. In the recitation of these numbers in my practice, the living and the dead, the accepted self and its disavowed darkness, the individual and the great entanglement of the universe find a place to coincide. Mark after mark, gesture after repeated gesture, counting the brushstrokes with their allotted number until the paint leaves only a faint trace, the making of each work affords moments of quiet revelation.

Continuing in this engagement with numerical mysticism, my attention turns to a ‘sacred matter’ that connects all things: the self and other, consciousness and cosmos. In this presentation of works, I find an analogue for the soul or spirit – for the divine presence – in numbers, which belong to both the material world and the imaginative world, they act upon the earth, are made physically manifest, yet remain simultaneously abstract. They are the language with which the universe is described, from the movement of stars and dust particles to the hardness of stones; they are eternal and abiding yet wholly human in their notation. That my practice has long engaged the teachings of Kabbalah extends these reflections on numbers beyond the purely rational towards the spiritual. The physical, the theoretical, the sacred: numbers transcend these registers of assumed difference. However mystical or manifest, I regard their values as revelatory tools of self- and scientific knowledge. The two need not be divisible. As Kabbalist Yehuda Berg writes: “We are all interconnected. People and the planet. This connection achieves its highest state through human consciousness.” With numbers, the invisible workings of nature might be revealed and our desire to belong, to recognise our place within the intricate web of life, affirmed. My commitment to counting as an underlying structure aspires toward this most sacred matter – our human connection to one another and the world." 

- Statement by Cathy Abraham and edited by Lucienne Bestall, 2024.

Artwork photography by Mia Thom

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

Opening hours:
Monday – Sunday 09:30 - 17:00
Please contact us to make an appointment outside of these hours.