What do painters do all day?

»When I first received the invitation to this exhibition I thought I would perhaps see an array of paraphernalia of what amuses artists when they are at home chilled and not occupied with the uncertain nature of the visual art object. After all can one really work all day long without rest? As an artist, unless you are employed in a dimly lit sweatshop, there must be something else that occupies you during your art practice on any given day. I walked away from my viewing of the exhibition fortified in the idea that artists wrestle all day long with making art; even when they are suppose to be taking a breather«

Artbud

‘a small lateral or terminal protuberance on the stem of a plant that may develop into a flower, leaf, or shoot’ 

I am still cranky from being away from the wordmachianikon for most of this year but the writerly bug juice beckons; the writing about nothing or everything or something gropes around. There is just a myriad of experiences that flood my psyche. To log into one is to gingerly watch every step of where I am going because everything is so muggle lest I get lost in the byways. So perhaps I should use a delicate scalpel to slice off this little tale…  

Intraparadox: Interview with Lebohang Kganye

Mohlokomedi wa Tora

»On the 30 August 2018 at the Pretoria Art Museum I had the privilege of interviewing Lebohang Kganye on her solo exhibition Mohlokomedi wa Torai. The body of work that she has produced for this project gives two matriarchical perspective of her family narratives from where Ke Sa Le Teng her SASOL New Signatures winning video installation left of.

Mmutle Arthur Kgokong: Thank you Lebohang for agreeing to talk to me once more. Uhm, it is a very interesting exhibition from the winning work last year. When I first saw that it is an installation I was struck by the fact that you have included your old man in this exhibition to give us that familiar element in your work. I just wanna ask you, you know, how has it been for your to create a new body of work for this solo project? Having won the prize last year, how did you produce this work?

Lebohang Kganye: I think it is daunting, I think even when I won it, I have been thinking about working in a particular way or experimenting with something very particular which was installation. I have already done it but I have never really resolved it, I have been doing it for the animation pieces and for the photography element uhm people should experience the work in that was, but I have never resolved it how to… because it was temporal, because it was softer cardboard. How to make it stand. Or be more permanent if you can say so was not really resolved. So this was great because it allowed me the time I had a good budget to kinda figure out and experiment with that. So I think it was great because I already had an idea of what I wanted to do was an installation, even though I wanted it to move, and this and this and that, but it was just such a great starting point and I am extremely excited about how this part of it is resolved

Gestures

The UNISA’s 2016 4^th Year Exhibition

 » An academic exhibition for fourth year students is an important milestone in the career of the art student. Simultaneously a fourth year art exhibition is a grand gesture from the institution itself to say to art patrons that this is our achievement over the past four years or so; This is the direction that art might take. Of course the ‘direction’ will solely rely on the art students themselves should they pursue their art practice further beyond academia because there is a vast difference between making art for marks and making art to say something within the annals of the fine arts fraternity mindful of commerce and socio-political environments. Even without care to these preoccupations for the artist to make art and contribute to human culture by continuously evolving the art object towards certain possibilities or ‘direction’, to retain the set tone above, it is a resounding milestone in their art practice «  

The Symphony of Line and Colour

I

Contemporary Outlook

|>>>/ There is something daring about art when it becomes a personal reflection; when it’s thematic considerations are meditations of its maker on themselves. This mode of working which is a tenant of contemporary art is a brave leap as the artist leads the viewer into a personal space both in imagery and a nuanced psychology of the self. If the body of work produced in this frame of mind sees the artist sharing personal anecdotes with the viewer through art making discourses then the viewer can be seen as accessing what can be akin to a memoir through a strewn body of a work that represents a ‘particular period’ in the artist’s life and career. The reader should note that I am saying that the memoir access that they will be subjected to with regard to the artist only represents a ‘particular period’ in the artist’s life because surely the artist focus, if they are constantly searching for new forms of artistic expressions, will shift in time and come to bare on something else <<<|

INTRAPARADOX: Interview with Nelmarie Du Preez

GUI Interrogations

26 September 2016 at 09:00, Pretoria Art Museum

 

• [Mmutle Arthur Kgokong: Good morning Nelmarie]/[Nelmarie Du Preez: Good morning Mmutle/[Mmutle AK: It might have been great to see you immediately after the opening of SASOL New Signatures but we know that it is a very busy time with regards to the press the following day and obviously you might be having some works that you need to go back to the following day and so on ]/[Nelmarie dP (Smiles, nods and chuckles)]/[Mmutle AK: yah congratulations on the exhibition, something very different…]/[Nelmarie Dp: Yes (chuckles)]/[Mmutle AK: from what we are used to uhm you are focusing on automation and other things I see

NdP:

Uhm… automation mostly and how automation influences the way that we as humans communicate with each other and also how we extend our bodies via these machines that are automated or just you know programmed to enhance our daily lives and, so I am interested in what impact that has on our bodies but also on our relationships

MAK:

Ohh,… it is very interesting that you talk about relationships between machines and human beings and you know I feel when I look at your uhm your artist statement I came across this word which maybe it’s a simple word •

Diary log 5 November

The first draft of Intraparadox: Interview with Nelmarie du Preeze which I conducted on 26 September 2016 is complete. It has been long overdue but I have completed it finally ! Over the next couple of weeks I will be readying it for blogging. It has been a difficult period writerly to emerge from the 47 minutes of this interview because of other pending projects as well professional workload elsewhere. But as always it has been a great pleasure to delve into the body of work that was featured in the SASOL NEW Signatures Solo exhibition 2016 through the perspective of the interview. Du Preeze comes across surprisingly as spontaneous and a humorous as a person. To a greater extent she is clinical in her execution of her technologically driven work. You can look forward to a discovery of GUI (Graphic User Interface) and the discourse between herself and this phenomenon that gives birth to her idea about art and technology. May we find the artist.

Subject – Intraparadox: Interview with Nelmarie du Preeze

 

Intraparadox: an interview with Banele Khoza

Temporary Feelings

23 March 2016

 

[Mmutle Arthur Kgokong: Good morning Banele Khoza]/[Banele Khoza: Hello Mmutle, how are you?]/[Mmutle AK: I am very well thank you, uhm welcome to Intraparadox, ehh I am glad you were able make time and see me ahead of your exhibition at the art museum which has something to do with your feelings, but we get to that point ehh towards the end of our interview. How are you doing man?]/[Banele K: I am good,

{clears throat}

sorry, I am pretty…I am good. I think for me it is such a huge honor for me for this to be happening cause you have mentioned so many times that you will be interviewing someone, interviewing someone and, I think the past years when I heard I was like, ….yoh, I wish I could be in that spot as well, just the same exhibition I think when I saw Vusi’s one last year I was like …woh… I wish I could do this. So for me, I think I am really excited that it has come to my side as well.]/[MAK:  Well I am glad to hear that because everybody has a fair chance to show to the world their artistic contribution and I think for someone who works hard like yourself ehh this is a well deserved opportunity. And ehh maybe we can even say that, as they say, things happen at the right time and at the right moment.  Yah uhm with the formalities out of the way I just want us to go back to the beginning of your life  so that we can sketch your portrait. Uhum where were you born?]

Intraparadox: An interview with Ilandi Barkhuizen

The Quadrille of Torture, Pain, Steel and Paint

14 May 2016

 Pretoria Art Museum

 

I spoke to Ilandi Barkhuizen on the morning of 14 May ahead of a group exhibition that will feature her work at the St. Lorient Fashion and Art Gallery on 15 May 2016 until 4 June 2016.

*

Mmutle Arthur Kgokong. Good morning Ilanda Barkhizen, I hope I am pronouncing your name correctly there

Ilandi Barkhuizen. Oh its fine I heard worse (Laughs)

Mmutle AK.  yes, so my pronunciation is on spot?

Ilandi barkhuizen. Yes!

MAK. Thank you, welcome to Intraparadox a platform for interviewing artists of all calibers it really does not matter whether the artist sees themselves as a fully practicing artist or whether as a beginner. The idea of the platform is to try and reveal the person, the artist, the person behind the work and …at the moment I hope you are excited with the exhibition

The Quadrille of Torture, Pain, Steel and Paint

Ilandi Barkhuizen

prologue

The preoccupation with the surface area in art making is an integral part of art practice as much as the development of new media is. It is an area that we often don’t give attention to when we look at works of art, yet it is there. It is a pedestal unto which ideas are communicated to us. The ancient artists, the San Hunter Gatherers, understood this; for instance they would use the bulge of the inside of the cave’s surface to express the bump of an antelope in an attempt to mimic form∇