The Tatham Art Gallery in Pietermaritzburg invites members
of the public to attend the opening of the 2017 Standard Bank Young Artist for
Visual Art, Beth Diane Armstrong.
The exhibition is titled in
perpetuum and will be opened by the artist herself. The opening will take
the form of a walkabout conducted by the artist, and members of the public are
invited to take advantage of this unique opportunity to interact with Armstrong.
Armstrong highlights the use of sculpture to explore
different expressions of density and looseness in relation to scale, structure,
materiality, space, representation, and process. She received the Standard Bank
Young Artist Award for Visual Art in 2017.
“Enter the steel matrix” ... “Density and looseness in
visual art,” says Armstrong.
From a very early age, Armstrong was drawn to processing
information this way, something that remains at the core of her practice. The
physicality of the process and the way it manifests in space creates a kind of
conceptual anchoring, a point of reference for other elements to stem from.
“It’s only more recently that I have been able to articulate why it is that I
love steel. Steel is not a fluid material; if you don’t commit your mark to the
steel, it holds you accountable to it.
“I think and feel in formal elements in relation to each
other. The space is located in an old industrial suburb in eastern Joburg.
“There is something intoxicating about this city, [like] the proximity of
objects to you. Joburg is giving.” Armstrong draws on her immediate environment
and is stimulated by the array of structures around her. She describes her
practice as one defined by introspection – often working alone and in a state
of contemplation. She uses the process of creating as a means of orientating
herself within the world, following the trajectory of sensation, observation,
translation and expression.
“My internal world is very abstract. I think and feel in
formal elements in relation to each other,” she says. A series of intersecting
relationships are formed between the physical, emotional and psychological.
When clad in a protective armour of woven navy fibres and a white visor, Armstrong’s
work comes to life. A surge of fiery embers unites hollow steel poles together,
controlled by skilled and nimble hands. The repetition of joins has a
meditative quality. Often, the process is toilsome as she engages with the
material. After much work, the rigid forms give in to her creative will.
Out of this emerges a steel matrix, connecting and entwining
notions of structure, both cognitive and physical, to construct a system of
interlocking mechanisms. “My approach to anything personal is systematic and
structural. My approach to anything structural is personal and systematic,” she
says, “I realised that I simply think better in three dimensions.”
When approaching her work, Armstrong uses a combination of
emotional intuition and rationality. “I have to resolve all mathematical and
physical engineering well in advance. “Often, part of my process is to count
things, order, measure, number and systematise. Those are more hidden
processes, but are not altogether lost on the works. I often have pages of
maths equations to ensure correct scaling. Days of complex understanding to
ensure they are correct,” she says.
She’s gathered years of experience through a process of
trial and error to compensate for a lack of formal welding training. One could
argue that perhaps it is because of this unrestrained experimentation between
material and technique that she has been able to develop her own language
within the medium.
When using practice as research, she employs
“problem-solving phenomena” in many of her projects. This approach operates
under the conditions in which constructed obstacles are used as springboards of
engagement. “It’s these parameters that allow me to enter a space of intuition
and connective flow with the work. [They] are also flexible and changeable as
the work develops, but there have to be parameters for me to be able to
create.” A conceptual thread running through Armstrong’s work is ‘dynamic
tension’, which is often understood in binary terms. According to her, “there
is always a … push and pull between knowledge and ignorance in the creative
process”.
As winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual
Art, she hopes to expand her immersive studio practice, enabling her to create
even larger and more demanding works while continuing to refine the ‘density
and looseness’ concept. She ends off by saying: “I’d like to remind the rest of
the world of what we are doing on the African continent.”
in perpetuum will
open with a Walkabout at 11h00 on April 8, 2018, in the Tatham Art Gallery’s Main
Exhibition Room. Entrance is free. The
exhibition will close on May 20, 2018, at 17h00.
For more information contact Pinky on 033 3922 811 or email:
pinky.nkabinde@msunduzi.gov.za
The Tatham
Art Gallery
is situated opposite the Town Hall in Chief
Albert Luthuli Street, Pietermaritzburg. It is
open from Tuesdays to Sundays from 10h00 to 17h00. Café Tatham is open on
Saturdays. Safe parking with a car guard available. More information on 033 392
2801 or visit www.tatham.org.za
Posts
