LATITUDES ART FAIR
2023
Heidi Fourie
Mbali Tshabalala
Anna van der Ploeg
David Krut Projects is pleased to be exhibiting at RMB Latitudes art fair this May. Launched in September 2019, Latitudes has provided exhibitors, artists and art lovers with an innovative curated art experience.
This year’s fair will be held at the renowned Shepstone Gardens, breaking away from the traditional art fair environment to celebrate the work of creative practitioners from across the continent. The event will operate both indoors and outdoors offering artist’s talks, walkabouts as well as a range of spectacular exhibitions for visitors to enjoy. The theme for 2023 is ‘co-emergence’ which considers the intersections between cultural and aesthetic influences and their interpretations in the context of African art.
David Krut Projects will be presenting three solo bodies of works Heidi Fourie, Mbali Tshabalala and Anna van der Ploeg. This year we are focusing on the voices of these young South African women – each of which create from their unique observational perspective. Across each of their individual themes lies a common thread of considering how we operate through our social identities in this world – be it with others, with ourselves or with nature.
Heidi Fourie (b.1990) is an accomplished South African artist who works intuitively from a conceptual point of submersion in the natural world, reflecting on bucolic scenes with a certain eeriness that has come to characterise her work. Since 2017, Fourie has collaborated with the David Krut Workshop (DKW) to translate her deep understanding of painting and drawing into intricate processes of using the etching press. Using water and oil-based mediums, Fourie continues to challenge traditional expectations using the painterly monotype process where painted images are transferred using a press, creating marks that cannot be replicated through any direct means. The process is unpredictable and requires a high level of attention to detail.
Through her long working relationship with Kim-Lee Loggenberg, senior technician at DKW, Fourie has developed a method of intricate layering in multiple colours, occasionally adding handwork after it has come off the press. The resulting artworks are referred to as monotypes but should be recognised as paintings on paper. This body of work presents the culmination of her most sophisticated works on paper to date, showcasing a vast understanding of the printing process through intimate and enchanting representations of figures in the natural world.
Mbali Tshabalala (b. 1988) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work embodies thematic expressions of identity juxtaposed with society’s often invisible expectations. Tshabalala’s work deals with recurring themes related to existential dialogue and an inquiry into external influences that inform her existence as a young South African woman of Xhosa and Swazi descent. Tshabalala is a curator and arts entrepreneur, and her work further explores notions of mental wellness in black societies, particularly in black women. Although historically burdened with many inequalities, black women are often expected to be of limitless resilience, tenacity and to embody ‘The Strong Black Woman’ persona.
Tshabalala makes use of paper lithography transfers, which overlaps the borders of photography and printmaking. Her imagery unpacks narratives signaling distinctive cultural moments in the past, present and future, which shape identity in black societies. Working with DKW collaborator Sbongiseni Khulu, Tshabalala has further incorporated hand-carved linocut, ink and tea staining, and handwork in these unique printed works.
Anna van der Ploeg (b. 1992) is a South African artist whose professional practice is far-reaching, including but not limited to painting, printmaking, and sculpture, seeking to probe notions of performativity, concealment, and tenderness in social relations. Though the catalyst to her work is loosely conceptual, her process is labour-intensive, perceptive, and specialised. As a figurative artist, she searches for new metaphors to convey insights about our common assemblies, to find rhythms in the motion of social, artistic, and intellectual contexts. Van der Ploeg is an accomplished printmaker who has undertaken residencies in Brussels, France, India and Japan, where she worked with Mokuhanga – a water-based woodblock printmaking technique. This ancient technique lends itself to many layers of colour – creating depth while preserving subtlety. In addition to her technical expertise and precision, Van der Ploeg delves into psychological and subconscious narratives, unveiling tensions, internal struggles and the subversive conflict in the normalcy of the real.
Omens in hot bacon contradiction is the artist’s second exhibition at David Krut Gallery, opening in Johannesburg in May. Her New York debut exhibition follows in June, both showcasing the artist’s extraordinary large-scale etchings and painterly prints made over three years in collaboration with DKW collaborator Roxy Kaczmarek.
