As renowned Cape Town artist Sanell Aggenbach puts it, “every afternoon, around 4pm, there is one corner of my studio which lights up in afternoon sun. In this corner is an overstuffed chair surrounded by books, notes, succulents, tea mugs and an occasional bloom. It is next to a large, steel-framed window overlooking an overgrown courtyard, and every afternoon I sit in this sunny corner to read and stare, stare, stare at my day’s work.
“It’s this looking and deciphering which determines when a work is done, how many layers I still need to apply and whether it is worth continuing or [if I] should rather shelve a painting away for another time.”
Unsurprisingly, the artwork she has created for Everard Read Joburg’s summer 2024 group show, Inner Sanctum, is called 4pm. You can easily imagine Aggenbach sitting and taking in the beautifully graphic rendition of a lily and the shadows it casts, percolating over what else is to be done.
I have spent time in Aggenbach’s undeniably cool “office” and so can attest to it being all she says. Having access to artists’ studios is, after all, one of the perks of being a culture writer. Twenty years of occasional peeks into these places of creative work have etched a few things into my brain.
They include a mishmash of coffee and red wine-stained glasses piled into sinks; walls collaged in meaningful items and images; and long, dark corridors in former industrial buildings that lead into huge, searingly bright spaces pockmarked by paint and paintings.
There are also clapped-out but comfy couches and fastidious ordering of supplies and material. Like the art their inhabitants create, all these spaces are wildly different, but nevertheless always fascinating. And it must be said, once you’ve visited these studios and have a context of where and how the artists make magic, you undoubtedly think differently about them and their work.
It’s thinking along these lines that prompted Everard Read Joburg’s chief curator, Gina Molle, to brief a whopping 50 local artists to create a work inspired or pivoting off where and how they work. “I find that one of the greatest treats of being involved in the gallery world is visiting artists’ studios. The opportunity to spend time in these almost hallowed, private spaces – to glimpse how people work, what drives and inspires them – is never an opportunity that should be passed up,” she says.
Molle wasn’t prescriptive in the brief and, given this huge group of established and young artists, largely but not exclusively from the Everard Read group’s stable, the result is tremendous.
For simplicity’s sake Molle loosely grouped the works into five themes and within that there’s a such a range of painting, photography, sculpture and drawing that we’d be shocked if there wasn’t something to appeal to everyone. It’s a great example of the calibre of artists working in South Africa now, but here are a couple of pieces that we really enjoy:
Luca Evans, ‘I Never Finish Anythin’, 2024
“My concept for the show is work about the difficulty of process and feelings of uselessness and futility in the studio. I’m kind of playing with the irony of producing finished products that never feel finished,” says Evans. If there is a piece that better encapsulates how hard getting down to work and finishing a job can be, we’d like to see it. The Capetonian is a master of playful, smart art and the Currency team are big fans.
Tafadzwa Tega, ‘Kindness’, 2024
Tega produced a triptych of incandescent floral still lifes for the show. Interestingly, he was not the only one who chose to focus on rendering blooms – Neill Wright, Kilmany-Jo Liversage and Lee-Ann Heath did so too. Perhaps this speaks to the fact that the still life is the quintessential studio “project”.
Thonton Kabeya, ‘I Love Melville’, 2024
Kabeya’s sculptural canvas work speaks for itself. It is a rendition of a view from his Melville studio and the comings and goings on the busy streets of the suburb. If you know the area, you’ll recognise spots such as The Anti-Social Social Club and Six, which make an appearance.
Neil Lowe, ‘Com-plicare I’, 2024
Lowe’s brilliant folded, laser-cut and perforated aluminium wall sculpture is ostensibly an abstract, blown-out piece that spills out of a base the size of his MacBook. Given that his process relies on this laptop, its inclusion is apt. He also adds: “This work deals with the human obsession to categorise things and put them in boxes, as well as the instability of our knowledge systems. It also highlights some of the many processes and translations that happen in my work.”
Talia Ramkilawan, ‘Shall I Grieve, Shall I Hope (They’ll Watch the World Burn) (Tent City Evictions, Cape Town, South Africa)’, 2024
As Ramkilawan says of her exceptional wool works: “In my studio, I am always shifting between this headspace. Between life is meaningless, do what brings you joy, live life through pleasure not pain, and then life is meaningless and the world is burning and capitalism sucks. As an artist navigating these emotions that I often feel simultaneously, I tend to overthink. What is my role as an artist? What should I, or do I, have the right to capture? These works explore the intersection of myself and the world.”
Guy Simpson, ‘Orange Grove’, 2024
Joburg’s Orange Grove was one of the suburbs that Simpson grew up in. For the work, and others like it, Simpson used satellite imagery to find images of cracks on walls in the suburb as reference. He then translated the crack and surfaces onto cut, layered and textured canvas. The pattern behind comes from an old tablecloth used in his studio in Cape Town. Of the work, he says: “The relationship of a crack in a wall from a faraway suburb, revealing something from my world now, encourages the idea that where we once came from, with all its faults, impacts who we are today.”
Denby Meyer, ‘View From My Window’, 2024
As the title of the enticing work illustrates, this is a view from Meyer’s studio window. He says, “rather than concentrate on the technical side of my studio, the tools and materials of the internal space, I have chosen to look outwards. My painting is of the view from my studio window, from the inspiration that comes from outside.” We’d also rather like to work from a space with that lush view!
‘Inner Sanctum’ is on until December 20 at Everard Read Joburg.
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