• Clarice TheysLIZE Dames, an artist specialising in creation through combining a range of media such as photography, text, paint and craft, is at it again.
After her successful exhibition at Anker Platz in Swakopmund in December, she is currently hosting another showing at the Last Resort and Wellness Centre which started yesterday and closes tomorrow.
The exhibition is an infusion of poetry and photography set in two digital books ‘Bitter Sweet Delight’ and ‘In Oorvloed’. Dames, who was born in Paarl, Cape Town in 1988, moved to the small town Gochas in the far south of Namibia. “I started to write poetry at the age of nine. I initially found it a splendid way in which I could express my soul’s turmoil, love and life unraveling around me.”
She started to write in English because she found the language easier to express herself in but after a while she tried her hand at her mother tongue, Afrikaans.
Like all aspiring poets, she spent hours on end reading poetry – some modern – others from the 16th, 17th and 18th century. Her favourite poems are written by renowned South African poet Ingrid Jonker.
“During school, my love for the art grew more intense during Afrikaans periods where we delved deep into verbal structures and savoring each word. I learnt to express compelling thoughts in short verses. I adore reading and writing poetry until this very day,” said Lize.
The viewer will be taken on a journey of 16 years of “emotional waves splashing against the wall in both Afrikaans and English. This is a journey I couldn’t have captured any differently than set in poetry, through my love of words.”
