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The pool, a place of ambiguous quietness 2020 | Art Lovers Gallery Pretoria
Artist’s annotation: The pool: a place of ambiguous quietness
In this solo exhibition of paintings of swimming
pools, which flowed from the small, south room
in Art Lover’s Gallery into the adjacent Trent
Gallery, I looked more closely at the ambiguity
of the mood of a pool of water. Water seems to
act as a receptacle of feeling, a place of
changing moods and intensified connection
between nature and the solitary contemplator.
Like a mirror, a pool reflects the state of mind of
the person who contemplates its stillness. It
becomes a place of self-reflection and balance
(Bachelard, 1983).
In certain paintings (for instance: Invocation), I
explored the notion of the pool as a place set
apart, a sacred and circumscribed space with
distinct potency, an almost palpable
atmosphere of a spirit presence (a joyous water
sprite). Intricate patterns of fallen petals on the
surface of the pool, chrome green from the
reflections of a bright green shrub border, are
made with daubs of creamy paint, which appear
to physically reflect light and form an intriguing
lacework that carries the eye across the
surface.
In other paintings, for example, Requiem the
derelict, neglected condition of the pool touches
on those feelings of sadness and loss. The pool
is a daily tomb, collecting leaf litter and other
drowned debris on its floor (Bachelard, 1983).
There is also a broken Kreepy-Crawly lying
among the dead leaves. The floor of the pool is
a watery grave of bleached skeletal leaves and
insects. The pool in this case, is a lidless coffin
that collects tears and the passage of time.
There are also paintings in this exhibition where
I explore an enveloping sense of wellbeing and
exhilaration, where the pool glows with
incandescent light and a breeze plays over the
water’s surface (Font III). In these works the
pool becomes the life-giving fountain at the
centre of paradise. I used broken brush mark,
dappled surfaces, and complementarycontrasting colours to create optical flickering.
There are a few smaller square paintings in this
exhibition where the nourishing, organic quality
of a natural ecosystem in a pond is explored. In
these, the water is thickened by microscopic
organisms to a gelatinous, fecund mucus, very
much like nourishing warm milk. The crisp
edges of foliage that lies on the water surface
contrasts with the mushy, nutritious vegetation
under the water. Water that feeds and provides
refuge has the quality of the womb and the
mother. I have used fat, juicy paint to convey
the idea of nourishment. These small pond
paintings brimming with life, echo Bachelard’s
beautiful words: “There is a universe in a pool
of water” (Bachelard, 1983).
This exhibition included a series of found
objects (bone china tea-cups with cracks or
broken ears) that I fitted with thin super-wood
discs, which were painted onto. Each tea-cup
appears to be half full, but not of tea. Instead,
the surface of a pool or pond painted onto the
disc transforms each cup into a miniature pool.
The tea-cups are from sets that were passed
down to me from great-grandmothers and
grandmothers. The cups themselves form the
curved edges of ponds and the hand-painted
decoration on the outsides of the cups hint at a
garden setting. There is the nostalgia of a lost
era about these miniature pools.
It is a but a fraction of the metaphorical richness
of water and pools that I explored in this body of
work
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