When they’re not competing for grants or giving each other the side-eye about government funding, the artistic community can be incredibly altruistic.
Currently coming together to raise funds for Dias Machate, a gifted sculptor and ceramist who suffered a stroke earlier this year and has since been unable to work, walk or speak, members of the visual arts community presented a Dias Machate fundraiser titled ‘Moments of a Light – An Exhibition of Miniatures’ at the National Gallery of Namibia (NAGN) last week.
Producing varied and vivid artworks, the exhibition of donated miniatures sees well known artists shrink their canvases to present pieces that could fit in your pocket.
Featuring over 50 artists from veterans like Paul Kiddo and Francois de Necker to newcomers like Mieke Droomer and Elke Le Roux, the initiative offered artists an opportunity to collectively reflect on their capacity to produce moments of light not only for themselves but also for their fellow man. Introducing the uplifting mood of the entire event is Peter Mwahalukange whose linocut transforms eerie African masks into goofy smiley faces in a mad meeting of tribal and instant messenger.
Mwahalukange’s piece opens the exhibition by virtue of it being right outside the door of the upper gallery which is home to a plethora of cute canvases including work by Kim Modise, Kay Cowley, Cathy McRoberts, Makanga Kalunda, Tony Figueira and Trudy Dicks.
Though the exhibition is mostly miniatures, there are larger pieces but these demand far less attention than the petite portraits that force the viewer to step forward and stare.
Certainly, a cunning way to elicit appreciation, works by Carmen Samaniege, Hercules Viljoen, Urte Remmerts, Mieke Droomer, Brigit Rudd, Elke and Katrin Bockmuehl, Anita Roux, Kirsten Wucher, Tatyana McDuling, Maryke Maree, Nevine Darwish, Gabriela Reuth and Susan Fray really embrace the diminutive form to present intriguing and intimate pieces that have you squinting into the squares to regard everything from feathers to Avis Dam to moonlit nights, fragmented faces and much more.
Small and strange were Nicky Marais’ nine boxes of green arrows all pointing up, down or both ways and while green is certainly for go, the intrigue lay in the fact that, much like Alice to the Cheshire cat, one leaves unsure of which way.
Perhaps most marvellous in terms of looking as though they would make fine fare for a hobbit hole are Willem van Schalkwyk’s six superbly framed landscapes tethered together by blue.
Capturing small and stunning mountains, river, seascapes and shells, his dinky collection is elegant and ethereal and a lesson to the smattering of large form artists who refused to say “Honey, I shrunk the canvas” and kindly donated large pieces instead.
Those are but a few of the featured frames, the exhibition also boasts sculpture, ceramics and larger paintings all the way up the stairs and into the upper gallery.
Certainly an exhibition built on donation and for a great cause that will see Machate enjoy better medical and home care, ‘Moments of Light’ is well worth wandering into and perhaps purchasing a pocket-sized something to support visual artists supporting visual artists.
