The Association For Visual Arts (AVA), in partnership with Hollard, 35 Church Street, Cape Town,
is hosting two exhibitions. In both downstairs galleries LYNNE LOMOFSKY will present an
exhibition entitled BODY OF EVIDENCE, while upstairs in the Artsstrip, ANTHONY CAWOOD
will exhibit his most recent, non-figurative paintings. Both exhibitions open at 6 pm on Monday, 9 June and run until Saturday, 28 June 2003 at noon.
The mixed media exhibition, BODY OF EVIDENCE, by LYNNE LOMOFSKY consists of videos, paintings in wax and oil and an archive of collages and photographs. Through the different media, the artist confronts the vulnerability of the diseased body, the transience of life and the struggle with mortality. With the visualisations of herself she attempts to order and unify the many disparate and chaotic elements of the experience of the ill body.
Since her diagnosis of lymphoma in 1993 and her successful 1997/8 exhibition Cancer Ward: LE 32, LOMOFSKY has continued to document, collate and investigate her experiences of cancer and the "complex issues of representation of the 'sick' body"(K. Smith 98) through a range of medical imaging technologies, video recordings and photographic documentation which have been distilled into a collection of images and videos, the latter made in collaboration with editor Koeka Stander of Playroom.
The video Cross Sections I draws the viewer into the artist’s process as it documents the harsh experience of the search for malignancy. In Cross Sections II, LOMOFSKY has taken a series of ordinarily static images that medical technology had generated of her body and has brought them to life. The spectator is invited into a sublime, moving morphological landscape which celebrates the hidden beauty of the body's interior. Within the shifting mass - concealed from the untrained eye - is a tumour that flits past at high speed and regular intervals. Beautiful blight. BC DC AC records the time-lapse progression of the artist’s head of hair before, during and after chemotherapy.
The artist states "whereas Cancer Ward: LE 32 was more a display of trauma and loss, this work is less confrontational, yet still highly personal, with my body as both subject and object. It is an ongoing exploration of the 'interiority' and 'otherness' of my own diseased body.
"This body of work documents the artist’s refusal to be a passive patient. Instead she claims agency in her life and inspires others to do so. Loss of hair, loss of bodily integrity and loss of dignity are embraced in life and examined fearlessly." (Emma Bedford, 2002)
LYNNE LOMOFSKY graduated with a BA from UCT in 1980. She then completed a National Diploma in Fine Art through the Cape Technikon, with a distinction in painting. After extensive travels throughout Europe and time spent in Canada, she recently completed a Masters in Fine Art at the Michaelis School of Fine Art (UCT). Solo exhibitions include Recent Work (Koffler-Loggia Gallery, Toronto, Canada, 1992) and the critically-acclaimed CANCER WARD LE: 32 (Mau Mau Gallery, Cape Town 1997 and Rembrandt van Rijn Gallery, JHB 1998).
LYNNE LOMOFSKY has exhibited in South Africa and abroad. Her work has been recognised by a number of awards and public grants in Toronto where she lived for seven years. She has lived and worked in Cape Town since returning here for treatment in 1995. This exhibition consists largely of work submitted for the degree of Master of Fine Art in 2002.
This exhibition was made possible by the generous assistance of Teljoy, Playroom, Moving Hands Theatre Company, Melize van der Merwe & Associates Attorneys and Conveyancers, and the Artreach fund of the Association For Visual Arts (AVA).
BODY OF EVIDENCE moves to the NSA Gallery in Durban where it opens on 8 July 2003.
In the Artsstrip ANTHONY CAWOOD will hold his second solo exhibition at AVA. Born in Kwa Zulu Natal, CAWOOD travelled in Europe, Egypt, Israel, Mexico and West Africa before settling in Cape Town where he now lives and works.
CAWOOD says of this exhibition: "The paintings have developed through the continual investigation of drawing. Engagement with the environment through drawing has informed the process of these paintings
as they are specific to a sense of ‘place’. The recognition and surprise of the shifts in the environment as one walks through, have been the foundation of these works. The attempt is to hold that sense of place and keep it in the present."
CAWOOD participated in a residency at the Fordsburg Art studios in Johannesburg in 1999 and thereafter in the Rafiki International workshop in Tanzania in 2001, as well as in Thupelo International workshops in 2000 and 2003 in the Cape. He has held a previous solo exhibition at AVA in 2000, and has exhibited on Thupelo workshops in Cape Town, and at the Bag Factory in Johannesburg, as well as on several Absolut Secret shows at AVA. He has organized and taken part in a variety of art-related Artreach projects: at Valkenburg Hospital, with refugee children at the ARC and in the Peace One Day exhibition at the Annex of the South African National Gallery in 2003. His involvement in such projects continues.
This exhibition was partially funded by the Artreach fund of the AVA.
IMAGE:
Lynne Lomofsky
Cancer Ward: LE 32 (1997)
Installation detail
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