("Breaking
Wave", embroidery/beads on fabric, 23 x 30cm by Jane Strode)
artSPACE durban will host an exhibition by Jane Strode
titled Sea Fever from August 31.
Jane Strode comments on her work:
“The sea has always been a part of my life: I grew up on the
North Coast and then five years ago my brother moved to Muizenberg in Cape Town
and I began visiting once a year. The light is so different there that I became
obsessed and the line of poetry “I must
go down to the sea again, the lonely sea and the sky” echoed in my head. I
needed to be out in all weathers, documenting the changing light and mood of
the sea with my camera the way other artists use sketchbooks. For me, a camera
works better because the scene in front of me changes by the second.
Just relying on my camera is not satisfying enough, however.
I want to reinterpret those images with brushes and paint and palette knife. I
want to put emotion into them. I want to paint that loneliness, that space,
that vastness. I want to feel the clean colours, the coldness of the water. I
want to paint the beauty and the fear of rough seas. My mind churns with ideas
of how to capture the charm of the foamy curves of receding waves, the abstract
patterns of reflections on that white Cape sand.
I have macular degeneration and my eyesight is currently
only 50% of a normal person’s vision. The deterioration has been rapid – over
two years I lost 20% of my vision and perhaps because of this, my paintings
have changed. I have found a freedom of movement in my brushstrokes and the
colours that I use. This desire to experiment and break away from old habits
has also invaded my textile pieces and I have become far more experimental than
I have been in the past. But perhaps I place too much emphasis on my eyesight.
Perhaps this new freedom is also part of growing older and more confident as an
artist.”
Sea Fever opens on
August 31 in the Main Gallery at artSPACE durban which is situated at 3 Millar
Road (off Umgeni Road) close to the Waste Centre. More information on 031 312
0793 or visit www.artspacedurban.co.za or www.artspacedurban.blogspot.com
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