“I’m a traditionalist,” says Abrie Fourie, behind a smirk that would tell even those who don’t know him, that he takes pleasure in making such a false statement.
Abrie’s gallery, on the Tshwane arts campus in Pretoria, is fairly well known for not only contemporary, but experimental work – both in media and concept. But on looking again, we must consider that Abrie is, himself, a photographer, and interested in all forms of media, interpretation, representation and provocation.
Enter, Dylan Thomas Graham.
He does indeed take a very traditional approach; Dylan paints, and he carries on painting. He assumes nothing, and expects his viewers to find meaning on their own. He works through each piece of art in isolation, and allows chance, curiosity, and a good curator to make decisions of how it will work in a given space. He speaks of representation, form and a continuing body of work (this show displays several selections from the past year).
Dylan works between a photographic-like framing of oddly banal still-lifes, and ‘from-memory’ portraits that evoke feelings of domesticity, naked/false notions of The Feminine, and trophy busts. In all, the show is oddly familiar, and Fourie the likely curator for its uncanny installation. I want to say it’s a purposeful throwback, but I am not sure to what, or for whom. Outlet has asked an artist who does a lot of commissions to think outside of the box, but inside of a white cube; the result feels like an eerie mockery of naivete, spoken between curator, artist and X.
