left: Untitled, 2005
Well, in addition to the brilliant Colleen Alborough show I’ve been helping out with (and bragging about) for the last while (responses were amazingly positive), two other exhibitions opened last night. The well-known Aidan Walsh exhibits some of his most recent paintings, and Themba Shibase, a bright young Durban star, hung his new, mixed media, works.
Altho the former is not exactly my style, he’s an icon of the area and an important figure in the arts, and supporting arts, scene. And I’m mostly alone in my under-appreciation ;)
Themba Shibase, and his “d-urban critique” is more my speed. His first solo exhibition, it:
consists of paintings on found board and paper, which is contrasted with pristine drawings in clinical white box frames. Rough edges, torn bits and loose, drippy brush marks lives comfortably with controlled and assured draughtsmanship in Shibase’s painted universe. The works interrogate new identities in an urban context, and are based on the pull between traditional cultural manifestations and a contemporary world of technology and a free-market economy.
And artists support artists! the above work (Untitled, 2005) was purchased just before the opening, by none other Colleen Alborough and her extremely cool and supportive husband, Matthew Townsend.
Virginia MacKenny wishes she was here.
