Uitstalling Art Gallery in Belgium is currently exhibiting Pendulum, an exploration of duality through portraiture by Lionel Smit.

The portraits showcase the artist embracing opposing forces. The exhibition, which runs until 2nd October, is an ode to contradictions, primarily comprising a series of dialogic diptychs reminiscent of photo negatives and their printed inverse.

Liza Grobler has just been announced as the South African winner of the 3rd edition of the Video Art Awards at Centre Luigi di Sarro (Rome) for her short film Voices from a Divided Fountain. The Award is given to 1 South African and 1 Italian artist in this international project run by the ARP. 

On exhibition until 31st July at Knysna Fine Arts is Liza's solo Wagging Tales and Modern Myths, which captures the spirit (and Spirits) of the Karoo in mixed media drawings, which are like windows onto the landscape, small portals that provide glimpses of other worlds. The photographic and hand drawn elements blend fact and fiction. They combines folklore, personal impressions and geographical location.

Artists Teresa Kutala Firmino and Blessing Ngobeni draw on their personal experiences to create powerful political work.

Read the full article here

For Brett Charles Seiler’s latest offering, Everard Read’s walls were painted black to host the frames and chalked afterthoughts, which along with the dimension-defining wooden sculptures, complete the collection that is ‘Timber’.

There’s a certainty to the introspective musings which hyphenate the works; they read like epiphanies, or tail-ends of conversations, or journal entries. These short stories such as, “after making love to a man he asked me if I believed in god” and “a homosexual with bad teeth” are part of what makes Seiler the dynamic artist he is. These intimate anecdotes seem both symptomatic of our symbiosis with social media, while feeling like a distinct, narrating voice emerging to guide the audience through the experience of the exhibition. More specifically, the experience of Seiler’s perspectives. From his bold linework, both in the ‘text’ and in the formation of his subjects, to his choice of canvas size and accompanying materials, to his use of space – Seiler is steadily extruding moments, and memories, and meanings to fulfil his vision as he enhances his style with each new work. ‘Timber’ is made up of building materials such as roof paint, bitumen, screws, and wood all accented by a familiar school-board shade of green to create room in which to ponder the institutionalisation of masculinity as you navigate Seiler’s themes and thinking.

Everard Read Cape Town is delighted to be part of the ARCO Lisboa and Madrid online E-XHIBITIONS for 2021. We are featuring a selection of new works by Blessing Ngobeni and Teresa Kutala Firmino.

Click here to view the full E-XHIBITION

We speak to Mark Read, chairman of the Everard Read group of galleries and also a passionate botanist and conservationist.

When poet and scholar Gabeba Baderoon was a graduate assistant at the University of Cape Town in 1988, there was a conference on Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness. As she looked at the programme, her gaze paused, fixing its attention on the cover image. It was something “meant to be glanced at briefly before one went into the substance of the programme”. But she looked intently, instead, and saw that it was a “picturesque image of an enslaved figure”, caught in a “play of visibility and invisibility”. 

Acclaimed South African artist Lionel Smit takes Stellenbosch Visio editor France Beyers through his studio, sharing his inspirations and the creative process behind some of his most distinctive works. 

Known for his contemporary portraiture, large canvases and sculptures, Smit has carved out an international career through his distinctive art. Smit’s work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London and was selected as the ‘face’ of the BP Portrait Award. Over the past 10 years, he has established a substantial international following with collectors ranging from the Standard Chartered Bank to Laurence Graff Art Collection at Delaire Graff wine estate.

We meet the artist in his studio ahead of his exhibitions at Everard Read and the KUNST art fair in October 2020.

Watch the video interview here.

Johannesburg - Blessing Ngobeni uses art to express his opinion.

“It is the best way for me to influence or engage in global matters that affect me and the world I live in.”

His solo exhibition, “Chaotic Pleasure”, is now showing at the Standard Bank Gallery.

“Art enables me to narrate stories of the past, historical events that affect the present life of a black child. I am able to visualise the future life of the black child through art.”

Deborah Bell, one of South Africa’s most eminent and critically acclaimed artists, returns to London with an exhibition at Everard Read. Sentinels is a major exhibition of monumental sculptures and more than 30 new paintings created over the past two years. At the heart of the exhibition are eight towering, 2.5-metre-high sculptures, Sentinels (2020). Cast in bronze, their origins trace back to the series of nine sentinels the artist made in 2003.