Roz Cryer: Past Work 2009

artSPACE durban & Coningsby Gallery London

Responses

Sheilla’s Salao –
50 x 120 cm - Oil and Fabric on Canvas –

Igreja De Fatima -

50 x 120 cm - Oil and Fabric on Canvas -

Big Sky –

70 x 60 cm – Mixed media on paper - SOLD

There are two sides to this exhibition. A collection of works responding to my recent journey through Mozambique. and the group of pieces I was working on at the time of this trip. (These pieces that I was working on at the time are included on the 'Past Work 2008' page)

At the time of our traverse of Mozambique I was working on a body of paintings and paper constructs that aimed to capture some of the issues I find myself grappling with more and more; the inconsistencies, contradictions and paradoxes in me and the fact that I move between two very different worlds. The developing and the developed… The fact that I have a self indulgent and superficial side which attempts to remain thus even when confronted by the hugely uncomfortable issues that arise in this unsettled……. but beautiful continent. This last body of work was inspired by 1. the realization that often times it is too much to expect resolution, and in those instances, the step to take is to recognize the anomalies and to hold them, this work is that holding, and 2. the book ‘Elephantoms’ by Lyall Watson. ‘… Part memoir, part lament, the book in the end reads as a prayer not only for the survival of a species but also for the emergence of a new way of being and thinking, a profoundly different vision of life itself.’ (Wade Davis, explorer-in-residence, National Geographic Society)

The paperwork during this period involved exploring contrasting images reflecting different ways of life, layering of colours, papers, printing, drawing, painting, ripping and cutting. This led me to seeking ways of transferring some of these elements onto canvas. The suggestions of both the elephant and the doorway in many of these pieces allude to the surrender to and acceptance of the confusions, contradictions and inconsistencies in my life as I strive to move through them and ‘the emergence of a new way of being and thinking’. The fabrics on which I paint allude to the observation that often times paintings take place on blank canvases. In reality, concepts are rarely painted on blank canvases but are laid down on cultural fabrics that alter or impact our perceptions.

So in response to what proved to be a very intense period with much soul searching, the journey through Mozambique activated my imagination with its space and the absence of complication. The variety of landscapes, the earth, the quality of the light, the incredible variety of luscious textile prints worn by the women, the contrast between rich pigments and sun bleached colour, the homes. These two collections are very different, however the Mozambique pieces offer some calm and rest after a heightened cycle of reflection and have inherited some of the mark-making and use of textiles discovered in my former work.

Mozambique is the most beautiful country. Run down after the civil war and the end of Portuguese rule, the buildings, scattered over hundreds of kilometers, survive with peeling, sun-bleached paint against the backdrop of mouth watering coloured earth, palm and coconut trees. The house, according to Jung, is a metaphor for the psyche. Through my representations of the homes seen on the dirt tracks to Vilanculos, my aim is to try to capture some of the essential nature of this captivating country.