BIRDS and MAN by Anthea Martin 4- 31 March 2016

Birds kept appearing in my collages, so called me to question their presence and to reflect on their beauty and ability to survive our changing world climate and destruction of their habitat.

Man and birds have had a long connection that encompasses centuries of beliefs, superstition and facts about birds. As birds can negotiate the heavenly heights they were thought to be messengers of the Gods.   Omens were read from the appearance of certain types of birds such as owls and ravens as harbingers of birth, death or foretelling significant events. Eagles, Hawks and other birds of prey were frequently used as symbols of power and might. 

On the earthly plane, birds are used for hunting to procure food and for sport.  Their feathers have adorned our bodies in the past and present.  Their quills wrote in ink our histories. Literature has endless references to birds in poems, prose, fairy and folk tales which explore their enduring power to fascinate us.

Carol Brown of Curate-a-Space gave the opening talk.

"The Messenger"

The exhibitions runs through Thursday, 31 March.

"Threaded Drawings" a group show Opening 25 May at 6/6:30p.m.

This is a group exhibition by artists who have produced works that are embroidered, machine-stitched, hand-stitched, whatever but based on drawings by their ‘favourite’ artist, or even just of one of their drawings that they love. Other media may be incorporated into the works just as long as the main focus is using thread.

Each work is accompanied by a statement with an image of the inspirational source.

The participating artists are:

Anthea Martin, Heather Pattenden, Jetteke de Vries, Jenny Retief, Joan Martin,

Julie Mayo, Lara Mellon, Leonie Malherbe, Louise Jennings, Pamela Benporath, Siobhan O’Reagain, swany and Karen Bradtke.

Walkabout by Anthea Martin and Catherine Stempowski on Saturday, 15 November at 12:00p.m.

Anthea Martin and Catherine Stempowski will give a walkabout 

of their drawing exhibition "The Earth Laughs" 

on Saturday, 15 November at 12:00p.m.

 

“The Earth Laughs” Anthea Martin and Catherine Stempowski 3 – 22 November 2014

In the Middle Gallery:

“The Earth Laughs”

Anthea Martin and Catherine Stempowski

-->Anthea Martin Artist Statement:

Memento mori  (Latin 'remember that you will die’). 

“My drawings try to reflect the art of detachment from the vanity of earthly life and the transient nature of all earthly goods and pursuits, with reference to the evidence of life on earth which dates back to 3000 million years.  There have been 5 mass extinctions on the way. We as a species are just a small part of this and if we vanish, the earth will laugh, recover and carry on"

(.Dennett. D.C. Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking. Beware of the Prime Mammal.43.) 

Catherine Stempowski draws on her personal experience with the landscape from the Central Drakensberg, specific areas in the Limpopo Province,  Mozambique and her garden. Through charcoal drawing she explores the spaces between, the lost spaces, the hidden places. This allows negative space to define the subject of rocks, plants, earth and sky."Without light there are no shadows, there is no form" she explains. Through her drawings one sees how moving light (the sun) fragments structure, redefines shapes, and sets new horizons: a constant rebirth, an ever-changing memory. Stempowski believes that she has to be barefoot to hear the earth laugh.

Opening talk by Dr. John Roome, Durban University of Technology Fine Art  Senior Lecturer

Anthea Martin

Catherine Stempowski

“Re Imagining The Landscape – Sites of Ambiguity" - Anthea Martin 15 October - 3 November 2012

Exhibition of collage and watercolour  by Anthea Martin

Opening talk by Jenny Stretton, Curator of Collections, Durban Art Gallery

Artist’s Statement

I have been interested in looking at The South African landscape and the question of ownership, identity and

memory.  In its pre-colonial history, the land was occupied by people who had been there for centuries but who had no concept of personal ownership or a written language to enforce their claims.  The exploration and colonization of land was a question of establishing ownership.  As is well known, this led to war and conflicts that are still in process.  It is the mountainous areas that remain untouched by human settlement because of the difficulties of inhabiting such areas but they also remain under dispute according to heritage or conservation issues.

            “Its recent history offers a means to reimagine the South African landscape, not as a series of apparently stable, discrete, areas of land, but rather as a connected site of complexity and ambiguity, where the construction of stability is rejected in favour of the uncovering of layered networks and meanings, which are embedded, one within (or over or beneath) the next.”

Beningfield, J. 2:  2006 The Frightened land, Land landscape and politics in South Africa in the twentieth century. Routledge, New York.

I dedicate this exhibition to Thomas Baines (1820-1875), who was an indefatigable explorer and recorder in Southern Africa of the flora, fauna, mapmaker, landscape and its indigenous people.  

In his letters he often complained that he had shoot game for food, repair wagons, cut wood, build shelters, tend sick animals and people on the expedition, as well as find time for his first love which was drawing and painting.