STEFAN SCHOEMAN’S ARMY

At my friend Alexis’s house this afternoon, I cast my eyes down towards the window.

“Oh look Lex! Big ants.”

I feel like I’ve tripped and fallen into a Lewis Carroll rabbit hole.

“Yes, Stefan’s,” says Lex.

Cape Town sculptor Stefan Schoeman makes beautiful things out of discarded stuff. His ants are made of wire, old DVD tape and avocado pips. Lex and I are big fans. He also makes incredible sculptures out of plastic flex.

‘What Alice Saw’ is one of 300 colours from the Midas Envirolite Zero VOC range of paints, available from Paint & Place paint shops in South Africa.

STEFAN WAS HERE AGAIN

Tonight Stefan the flex sculpture man brought this beauty around. I beamed the picture up and it was taken in 45 seconds. Go Stefan.

 

 

STEFAN SCHOEMAN’S SCULPTURES

Angel in flex, by Stefan Schoeman

An artist by the name of Stefan Schoeman (who sometimes arrives in our area dressed in a full kilt) works between Kalk Bay and Woodstock, selling his flex sculptures of angels, rhinos, buffalos and things. I had to buy the zombie angel.

Zombie angel is now on my dishrack. It can stay there until I have to wash up after Sunday lunch. Maybe lunch will be more of a success with this presiding over the cook-off.

More by Stefan:

MY SISTER THE HEAD GIRL

Bust by Wendy Moorcroft

Napoleon & crew. Crew by Wendy Moorcroft.

Portrait on wood - Gabby Raaff

I love a bit of a sleepover at my sister’s place. Here we are high up, close to the big, flat mountain and all cloaked in mist and  fog and motreen. I had to look up the meaning of motreen the other day when I found it in my arsenal of paint swatches. Motreen can be wonderful, if you like that sort of thing. (Actually, I do.) Motreen is drizzle. Light, soft, pearlescent rain that falls down on our heads from what looks like mountain fog. Rain and fog is what Cape Town does best, from now till September. No complaints really. On days like this, it’s nice to be in big sister’s lovely quiet carpeted hideout. Lovely way to spend a 5 day weekend. Another thing I love about coming here: the bottomless pot of interesting stuff. She is a collector. Last night we found a Sony Walkman circa 1988, and some real Fifties Barbies, a few interesting tea sets, and some fairy lights.

My sister is also a collector of busts and heads and portraits. Some of these she actually even made herself. I think she should jump ship and dive right into sculpture.

Mountain Fog - by Midas Envirolite

PIERROT IS HERO

'BOY WITH FUR COLLAR' - by Johan Slabber

Nostradamus of trend, Li Edelkoort, came to Cape Town last month and told the people that Pierrot-like stuff would probably crop up in our lives this year.

Voila.

Except this it wasn’t done yesterday. ‘The Boy With Fur Collar’ is from the personal archives of Cape Town artist Johan Slabber, whose work is introspective and intense. Seeing this makes me want to pick up a stick of charcoal or an ink pen and get messy with my sketch book.

The work below is another of Johan’s.

'Walking Away' - by Johan Slabber

GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM

'LOVE PLAYING' ART BALL BY GABBY RAAFF

'LOVE PLAYING' - A SERIES OF INKED PRINTS BY GABBY RAAFF

A couple of people in Vietnam have been reading my blog lately. Wonderful thing called blog stats, one of the supadupa service add-ons from WordPress, tells me this. It’s amazing to see where in the world people who come here, come from. I was looking at shot of an old Vietnamese flag just the other day and thought how wonderful the colours are. Bright yellow star on tomato red. I looked around my house and saw those colours in a few of my favourite things. Hola Vietnam, have a great day.

'Golden' and 'On Fire' - brights from the Midas Envirolite range

HAPPY CONTENT BY KURT PIO

I say thanks to my friend Alexis Roberts for showing me these wonderful paintings with a twisty take on the iconic Penquin look. She tracked them down from Kurt Pio, who is an amazing Cape Town fine artist and also a milliner. http://kurtpiomillinery.withtank.com/home/

They’re biggies. Plus minus a metre or so deep. I think a collection of them (or hey, just one) would look great on a wall. Imagine chocolate bars. A chocolatier should talk to Kurt. Honest chocolates, come on.

My favourite, this evening, is Happy Content. But next time I look, I might like another one even more.

YOUR TABLE IS READY

This is the work of Cape Town artist Caryn Scrimgeour. A mixed marmalade of things old and new, ordinary and beautiful, in table settings that beseech you to pull up a chair and pour yourself ‘n glasie wyn.

Caryn’s exhibition, titled ‘Conundrum’, will be opening at Everard Read in Joburg on 9 Feb 2012.

Everard Read describes her work as “subject matter chosen from commonplace objects that surround her; objects
that are fragile and precious are juxtaposed with ordinary mundane items, which in turn are elevated to the same level of importance. Delicate chinaware, glassware and insects are combined with common trinkets and knick-knacks and portrayed against a backdrop of richly patterned fabric in a way that is reminiscent of 17th century Dutch still life painting.”

CALL OF THE GARDEN ROUTE

'Monkey Ropes' is one of 70 colours from the Earthcote Heritage Collection: environmentally friendly paint inspired by South African dorps, landscapes and cultural icons.

'A gift from a garden, passon' - oil on gesso panel, by Arabella Caccia

Will your steering wheel force you to make a turn along the Garden Route, these holidays? Don’t take that same old toll road to Knysna. Take the old Bloukrans pass, follow the twists through the shady, wet tangle of jungle, where the river water is like cold, black coffee, and the monkey ropes dangle, suspended, waiting for Tarzan.

‘A gift from a garden: fertility’ – oil on gesso panel by Arabella Caccia

Find a canoe and picnic under the trees with the frogs and the crabs on the banks of Jubliee Creek in Knysna. In Plett, go stand in front of some cool, peaceful, eye soothing paintings by Cape Town artists Arabella Caccia and Cathy Abraham.  Their dual exhibition, ‘Essence’, is happening at Chandler House gallery, 20 – 29 December, 6 Crescent Street, Plett.

ODITA WAS HERE

Odili Donald Odita - installation at Michael Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town

And he might come again, said the nice person at the front desk in Cape Town’s Michael Stevenson gallery. Maybe next year, is what she said. Oh, I so hope.

I popped in there yesterday for just a minute, and took a snap of the Odili Donald Odita installations at the entrance. I thought, how about we dispense with things like Chrstmas trees, and just paint Odita walls in our living rooms? This is my idea of fun.

Odita, who is represented at galleries in both New York and Cape Town, has a fascinating way of working with commercial acylic wall paint and he considers walls to be his canvas. Go here to get more about the artist and his work.

What appeals to me about this is the violent clash of colours, like what I was saying about Mark Rothko yesterday.