THIS MUST BE THE PLACE BY RECENT GRADUATES OF THE MICHEALIS SCHOOL OF FINE ART

The show functions as a platform for contemporary explorations of traditional media rather than as a mandate for unity, with the artists expanding upon their work in the fields of painting, printmaking and drawing. Having few common thematic concerns and no narrative coherence, the exhibition, like the Talking Heads song from which it borrows its name, takes the non-sequitur as its framework and strategy. Having no right to designate effects, and no power to determine results, the artists approach the show as one would a de facto cohabitation: a place in which to come together, allowing difference to produce something new, before ultimately drifting apart.

George CHAPMAN (b. 1988 in Cape Town) completed his BFA (Painting) at Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2010. A painter, Chapman draws his subject matter from the streets of the city. Chapman’s city is a limitless resource of imaginings in paint, where the artifice of memory simultaneously crumbles and is re-imagined.

Kitty DORJE (b. 1977 in Cape Town) completed her BFA (Drawing) at Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2010. Dorje’s drawings, interventions and video works investigate fear associated with public spaces in South Africa. In her drawings she uses the imaginative potential of the drawn mark to describe the dense sensation of fear that she feels pushing against her in certain uncomfortable public spaces.

Abigail HARPER (b. 1984 in Pretoria) completed her PG Diploma in Printmaking at Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2010. Abigail Harper’s anonymous, prone figures and deserted landscapes explore themes of migration, identity and loneliness. Crumbling structures and sites refer to the impermanence of the places we call home, as the past becomes a construct of personal mythology.

Ian GROSE (b. 1985 in Joburg) completed his PG Diploma in Painting at Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2010. Understanding himself as a translator of visual material, Grose approaches figurative painting as a realm of language, drawing on contemporary theories of translation to articulate themes of transformation, remnant and loss.

Leigh TUCKNISS (b. 1987) completed her BFA (Painting) at Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2010. Tuckniss is concerned with ideas of the spiritual in her work. Drawing on her immediate surroundings, Tuckniss uses charcoal, watercolour and ink to investigate the mystery of images that awaken her senses.