(Jace with students at
work at CFAD)
A fictional character that JACE created in 1989, Gouzo celebrates
20 years of a colourful and well- travelled life. In partnership with Alliance
Française de Durban, the Centre for Fine Art Animation (CFAD) and Design partnered
to celebrate this milestone.
As part of the celebrations, Jace will travel around South
Africa with confirmed stops in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Gaborone in Botswana.
Part of the events planned is a book documenting Jace’s time in South Africa
and in Botswana. In his travels, Jace is accompanied by a photographer
Ntombenhle Mbongwe who is commissioned to do documentary stills for the book
that will be launched next year at FRAC. FRAC is a prestigious institution that
collects and promotes contemporary art from artists around the world and CFAD
was proud to be part in this project.
Jace conducted a workshop with third year students from CFAD
and the works created at the workshop were shown at the festival Francofête,
promoting the Francophone celebration, on March 21.
The workshop saw Jace give a presentation of his work
spanning two decades across continents. The intention of the presentation was
to allow students to contextualize and interact with Jace also as a foundation
and preparatory phase for what the workshop will entail at CFAD.
During the presentation, Jace presented a body of graffiti
work with a twist as the work themselves engaged billboards, not graffiti art
as we know it. In Reunion Island, where Jace resides, he engages billboards
where he adds his intervention on existing billboards. An example will be a
beer advert where the artist has changed what was originally a beer can to what
ends up looking like a spray can obviously symbolic of his spray cans that he
works with. This aspect of his practice resonated with students at CFAD which
in turn informed what the workshop became.
Learners were asked to bring posters, acrylic paint and
other painting materials to the workshop. The posters themselves could be that
of movies, political posters etc. The intent was for learners to learn to work
from an existing image. Ideally, what started as a political poster ended up as
amazing work of art. In some cases, students changed the poster completely or
blocked parts of the poster altering aspects of the poster to a point where the
viewer is still able to recognize it.
CFAD is a
pioneer in private creative education. More information from Larina
Naicker, Manager CFAD, on 031 240
8402 or email: contactus@cfad.co.za
or visit www.cfad.co.za
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