Up-and-coming Fine Artist to keep an eye on – Marjorie Human
by Lettie
Bouquet - Oil on Canvas, 2008 - 1 220mm in diameter
Marjorie invites all the HipnHopeful Blog readers to attend the opening of ShapeShifters, an exhibition of a selection of artworks by herself and Davina de Beer. You can join them for a drink and something sweet on the 17th of Desember at Iewers Nice, Reidstreet 28, Westdene. Time 18:30 for 19:00. Opening Speaker: Marguerite Visser. A cashbar will be available.
Become a fan on our Facebook page here and attend the exhibition, ShapeShifters.
More about Marjorie Human
Marjorie is a soon to be 27 year old artist. She grew up in the small Free State town Boshof, and got her love for making things from her parents who are both very artistic. After finishing school she studied fine arts at the University of the Free State. She is currently busy completing a MAFA at the same institution. She says she divide her time between painting and teaching illustration at Planet Pixl Design School. It is very important to her to be involved in the development of the arts and she was previously project manager of The Artists in Schools project at UFS, that trains artists from various backgrounds to offer arts and culture workshops in community schools. She’s also involved in VANSA (Visual Arts Network of South Africa) that seek to develop and grow the visual arts sector in South Africa.
What she had to say about her work:
“I work in the “traditional” medium of painting, but use imagery from popular culture and everyday life as my subject matter. I am interested in pattern, because with it I can make connections between new image media such as computer graphics, handmade crafts and painting. In my method of working I collect, copy, repeat, change and layer. Through this process I rework images already infused with meaning to create new visual ‘hybrids’.
The repetitiveness and mesmerizing quality of pattern strikes me, because it both pulls the viewer in and leaves you wanting-often in the super speed reproduction age we live in, we are familiar with images (such as the damask pattern) put there is no specific or personal meaning connected to it anymore.
In my latest work I often feature the springbok (a symbol often use in post-Afrikaner kitch decor and design) a symbol that some South-Africans seem to try to connect with a certain part of their identity – maybe an identity that is getting lost. I show the decay of this once power symbol by the use of springbok skulls. I sometimes paint these skulls in a more ‘realistic’ way, to contrast naturalistic still life painting with the flatness of the other patterns and decorative images I use. In a way my compositions can sometimes become like the seventeenth century Dutch still life genre, ‘vanitas’. These artists often paired attractive flowers and fruit with skulls and insects to remind the viewer of ‘vanity’-that appearances are not permanent and will quickly decay.”