Today is the final day of an art show by Rhodes Fine Art students called the 10 Days Exhibition. On display in the Albany History Museum's Alumni Gallery, it is a selection of works created by first- to fourth-year students during the 10 days of their recent holiday.
Today is the final day of an art show by Rhodes Fine Art students called the 10 Days Exhibition. On display in the Albany History Museum's Alumni Gallery, it is a selection of works created by first- to fourth-year students during the 10 days of their recent holiday.
Digital arts lecturer Rat Western, who curated the project with colleague Tanya Poole, said the aim was not only to motivate the students to work during the holiday – “Presumably as an artist you don’t stop doing it,” said Western – but to think about work creatively.
She said the work was experimental, playful, and not to be taken too seriously. “It is refreshing to see Rhodes students creating work unmediated.
For junior students it was about working without assistance. For the seniors it was developing their voice.”
Annemi Conradie, art history and visual culture studies lecturer and one of the judges of the exhibition, said it was a way for the artists to stretch their boundaries and imagination.
Conradie said the works which had caught the judges' attention were those that inspired conversation and contemplation.
The judges described Daniel Nel’s “Looking and Finding” as the "most successful".
Conradie said Nel had almost "embodied" the brief.
The second-year student said he had sketched compulsively during the 10 days, and then had an urge to tabulate what he had created. He drew five diagrams representing random categories – the medium he used most, locations he had been to and sketches he judged as decent or poor.
He won a R500 voucher from the Fine Art department’s stock room.
Also commended was fourth-year, Sam Munro, for her video installation "Public Portraits". Munro created a video of 10 people standing naked for 10 minutes at Slipstream sports bar.
Conradie’s first reaction was that Munro was very brave to do such a social experiment: “It is a powerful juxtaposition,” she said.
Conradie said other works that caught her interest were sketches on shaved pencil crayons by Lindi Lombard – “a lovely piece of illustrative work” – and the photographs of people in the back of a taxi by Rosa Schafer, which Conradie said "gave glimpses of the lives of the people".
