9 LINOCUTS
December 2010/January 2011
iArt Gallery, 71 Loop Street
The large-scale linocut exhibition at iArt Gallery, in collaboration with Artist Proof Studio, constitutes a turning point in the history of relief printmaking in South Africa. The relief print as medium has often been used in countries to voice political protest as well as religious and social messages. Relief prints have served as a voice for the marginalized and have been produced on kitchen tables or in under-equipped studios. Editions were often printed intermittently, as and when funds to buy paper and ink became available.
In the late-1950s the Polly Street Art Centre training challenged notions of a stereotypical “African aesthetic” foisted on the Black artists who studied at the Centre. The Evangelical Lutheran Art and Craft Centre at Rorke’s Drift had a similar mission with its printmaking courses in the 1960s and 70s. In the 1980s the political voice of the people was strongly articulated in the printmaking that emanated from such diverse art studios and training centres as Funda, the Mofolo Art Centre, the Johannesburg Art foundation, the Community Arts Project, Graphic Equaliser, Alex Art Centre, and Medu. Printmaking constituted an apt metaphor for the socio-political past of South Africa, a theory best articulated by Phillipa Hobbs and Elizabeth Rankin in their ground-breaking book, Printmaking in a Transformative South Africa (1997).
One way in which the Artist Proof Studio has done that was to invite some South African artists and printmakers to cut large-scale linoblocks, printing eight of the editions of ten on paper, offering two of the edition to act as cartoons for printing on fabric to be embroidered by community groups.
Participating artists in the linocut project are Elza Botha (Miles), Sandile Goje, Phillemon Hlungwani, Motsamai Thabane, Colbert Mashile, Dikgwele Paul Molete, Joel Mpah Dooh, Walter Oltmann, and Diane Victor. Community organisations taking part in the embroidery/beading of the prints on fabric are the Kosikona Project, the Umcebo Trust, the Hillcrest AIDS Centre (WOZA MOYA), the Jah Azania group, the Chivirika Project, and the Ikageng Project.
Tamar Mason and Bronwen Findlay designed especial linocuts for another ongoing AIDS project, also to be embroidered. A selection of embroidered/beaded work will be on show alongside the linocuts at iArt Gallery, 71 Loop Street.