Artists transform everyday materials at Open Studios Joburg

From a Stone (left) and To a Glassel (right), 2023, mulched paper with midnight blue pigment and a handful of plaster, by Bella Knemeyer, at the RMB Latitudes Art Fair, photograph by the author.

In one of my favourite songs, titled Love, American alternative pop songstress Lana Del Rey sings, “you get ready, you get all dressed up, to go nowhere in particular”. Except, on the weekend of May 27 and 28, many art lovers and collectors were dressing up to go somewhere in particular — to the various art studios that have taken up space at unique and dynamic corners of Joburg’s inner city. As many as 160 artists opened the ever-intriguing yet often unreached doors of their creative zones to the public for Open Studios Joburg, which was happening alongside the RMB Latitudes Art Fair at Shepstone Gardens.

One of the most remarkable aspects was how many artists brought to our attention our relationships with materials that are part of our everyday experiences. At the Bag Factory destination were DuduBloom More’s soft disks made with cardboard material, representing th

e internal world of matter - the multi-layered strings of wool symbolising the many intricate threads that makeup oneself. They were amalgamated to create different shapes and held up by the hand, presented as framed photographic images and given the title Trusting enough to hold myself (2021). As a visitor aptly remarked: “this is such a beautiful statement – holding oneself, I love the idea of having your body and your mind in your own hands.”

Usen Obot’s wood sculptures and sculpted canvases, at his Bag Factory studio, portray African royals and family Units in their most collective and holistic sense. This was another striking example of creative manipulation of material. Wood has always been a way the Ibibio people of Ekpo heritage, in Nigeria, connected with their ancestors and the spiritual world – through their traditional masks and headdresses.

The Treatment of Women, 2023, mixed media on hessian sack, by Nkosinathi Thomas Ngulube, at the RMB Latitudes Art Fair, photograph by the author.

At the Living Artists Emporium (LAE), the artists stood by their collection of works with gleaming faces, eager to share their stories and motivations that form part of their artistic jour

neys. An integral part of the Open Studios Joburg experience is to allow visitors to walk around the space and speak freely with the artists. Danisile Njoli took us through how it can take him as much as three months to complete one giant mixed-media painting which includes newspapers and watercolours for materials.

“I loved meeting the artists and listening to the narratives around their creations,” said Sandra Greeff – founder of The Yellow Umbrella Project, which is an arts-based community outreach non-profit organisation.

The visitors to LAE could also experience the different materials they are all too familiar with in an artistically innovative way – such as the colourful shweshwe fabric pieces that make up Splash Motong’s colourful collage portraits and the Mashangaan bags that make up the socio-cultural landscape of Stoffel Mogano’s pictorial long walks. If you have ever seen mosadi wa Mopedi in traditional attire, then you understand the decorative elegance of African womanhood and cultural pride. If you once had to pack clothes into this bag made from weaved plastic, then you must know the fantastical feeling of looking forward to a new beginning.

Mncedi Madolo, along with other artists at the Asisebenze Art Atelier during the Sunday programme, was in his studio reflecting on what inspires his art practice. He is informed by the lived experiences of Black bodies and the histories from which we came. As he explained, the use of found objects in his work, such as coffee, the clippings of newspaper mastheads and logos of brands like Lucky Star canned fish and Impala maize meal attested to the historical and socio-economic struggles of Black people as created by imbalances of power and segregation. He also turns to religion at gloomy times, hoping to bring light to his surroundings.

Some of his collage pieces were showcased at the RMB Latitudes Art Fair, which was taking place at Shepstone Gardens, in the Mountain View suburb.

“It is an interesting dynamic. I do like how they were able to incorporate the elements of nature with the different art galleries indoors,” said one of two Joburg socialites. This observation recalled ideas by art historian and curator Chus Martinez’s in his paper The Octopus in Love (published on e-flux, in 2014), where he speaks about bringing the rainforest into the white cube or, in the case of this affair, bringing the classical mode of interacting with and appreciating art into a large garden venue with wild flowers, a glass marquee, a mezzanine, a sky lounge with a panoramic view of the city, and more.

Nkosinathi Thomas Ngulube, showing works at the Thomarts Gallery at that fair, focused on gender violence in The Treatment of Women (2023), which was made from various paints on hessian material on canvas.

“You can also see how the material changes, from being thin to being thick in some parts, to accommodate the faces and expressions of the subjects,” observed said Dolophina Dolly Vilankulu – who was assisting at the booth.

Reservoir Projects, which is curatorial collective based in Cape Town, presented works at the fair by Bella Knemeyer, whose art practice is an in-depth exploration of the physical and architectural world. According to the co-founder Shona van der Merwe, “the artist makes use of existing paper sources that are obsolete, like the Yellow Pages that have been replaced by electronic phone books, those she found in a second-hand store, somebody’s tax returns”.

She is very ecologically conscious and poetically inclined in her use of “archival sources that have had a life of their own before,” van der Merwe reflected. In a way, Knemeyer’s mulching of paper symbolises a rebirth of the accustomed death of archival material and the midnight blue pigment and a handful of plaster that she applied in the making of paintings From a Stone and To a Glassel (2023) represent the growth of something new that is still to carry on its own life. It is the very nature of things, the very cycle of mortality.

Materials are a significant part of this life of ours whether synthetic or natural. We become who we are through process and design, and in the shapes of ourselves as reflected through the threading or sculpting of these different objects. Such as the veins beneath our skin as seen on tree branches and leaves in the garden or the red wool in DuduBloom More’s disks. Through advertisements and newspapers, our ways of survival have been written. Humanity hinges on materiality. All this art has captured it truly. - This text was produced during an independent journalism development project by African Arts Content focused on the Openstudios.Joburg programme.

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