The reason that I chose the Owl House
is because I met Helen Martins in Nieu-Bethesda and was very impressed by her
liveliness and total dedication to the creation of her wonder world. She
originally trained as a teacher at the Graaf Reinet College and after a short
marriage settled with her parents in Nieu-Bethesda. After the death of her
parents she commenced on creating the sculpture garden with the assistance of Koos
Malgas. Her inspiration was the Bible and Omar Khayam, but she was also
obsessed by owls and the Mona Lisa, which she depicted in many different ways.
The interior of the house has walls and ceilings covered in powdered glass
which gleams in low light and with the beveled mirrors on the walls creates a
mysterious atmosphere, She also placed sculptures inside the house, e.g. lying
figures as doorstops and mermaids on the edge of the bath. Helen became more
and more isolated from the conservative Afrikaner community of the town who
considered her eccentric behavior with suspicion. To compensate for their
hostility they would send her gifts of canned fruit and jam, which she never
ate but used as decorations in the kitchen shelves. Her eyesight started
failing by 1978 and she committed suicide in the front room (painting: The
final room), where she hung a black golliwog upside down on a crossed shaped mirror
and drank caustic soda. My paintings do not attempt to depict the MUSEUM (all
neatened up) as it is today but rather the house as it was when I met her, and
also a year after her death when I obtained the keys to the locked up house,
and the plants in pots inside had grown huge and fallen over onto the beds (e.g. painting "Helen and the Cacti"), I have also used a lot of artistic freedom and
rearranged objects in the paintings. I am attempting to depict the SPIRIT of
Helen Martins. Helen is today considered as a forerunner of SA outsider Art.
Opening
talk by Celeste Bredin
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