An exhibition of The Printing Girls collective
I am very proud to be exhibiting my large scale woodcut "Trace of a red tide" in the For(Sea)Change exhibition, now showing at the AVA Gallery in Cape Town. This woodcut forms part of my Residuals series and refers to the trace we leave in our wake, recording the decisions made and actions taken and not taken, as we go about our lives. My trace speaks of my role as woman too. This is referenced conceptually through the colour of the piece and the title "Trace of a red tide". Its wonderful to finally see this piece exhibited in South Africa, juxtaposed with the work of artists who I deeply admire.
Some information on the exhibition:
There is growing recognition that the ‘wild’ of art, its playful unboundedness, its existence in the spaces between things, has a vital part to play in addressing the environmental and socio-political crises we are facing globally today. Art activism can be a powerful catalyst for social change.
The dominance of scientific rationalism in Western thought has allowed for outstanding technological advances, but it has also contributed to the devastating environmental breakdown we are experiencing in the twenty-first century. Western cultures have steadily objectified and destroyed the life systems on Earth that sustain human life and there has been a concurrent erosion of the wild, unbounded inner life too. The rights of indigenous peoples have been trampled, those who have lived in harmony with nature, a sacred realm, as belonging to nature rather than the other way around.
The printmakers represented in For(Sea)Change either consciously seek out the sublime, and give material expression to it or expose the perilous consequences of ignoring our place in the broader scheme of things. As vulnerable artworks on paper, the works also bravely reimagine our broken world as a rewilded place, a place of restitution and regeneration, not only of our degraded ocean and environment but of our damaged and spiritually alienated selves too.
In the wild sea of the collective unconscious, no man is an island. It's time for change.
View Exhibition Catalogue here.
Contact: Olga Speakes, AVA Gallery olga@ava.co.za