ARTWORKS
MOTIVATION
SMITH presents limp, a solo exhibition by Elize Vossgätter. Through her use of paint and sculptural mass Elize Vossgätter is describing a generation that has been made ‘limp’ by new codes of political correctness and feelings of collective shame.
She speaks from her own experience and observes a liberal generation of well-equipped, well-educated, financially comfortable white people that are fumbling to find a voice in a socio-political landscape that is angered by the lack of transformation that has happened in South Africa in the last 20 years.
I want to talk about a facile generation of citizens who feel that they have their well-groomed hands tied: they feel unable, unwilling, unmoving, impotent and ineffectual,” says Vossgatter. “We have the ability to fight and affect change but simultaneously a feeling that we need to surrender: we are a confused, muted generation
Her figures have their hands tied, are suspended, hanging and seeking balance, roaming, idling, and observing: they are suspended in acts of what she describes as ‘passive action’. Doing something….but doing nothing.
Vossgätter hones in on ideas of idleness, passivity and the limbo of indecision with a sculptural element in the collection: a line of thin pillars fashioned from white plaster imbued with disconnected colour that hang suspended between the paintings – almost acting as obstacles. The pillars – heavy, blemished and cracked – read simultaneously as limp figures and as a broken structure. Her choice of materials carries with it a weight of manufacture and manipulation that conspire to construct landscapes of viscera in which her figures roam.
Black Magic: The tension between holding on and letting go, 2016
1450mm x 950mm
Beeswax, black oxide, oil pastel, pencil crayon, oil paint, varnish5
White Balance: The tension between holding on and letting go, 2016
1450mm x 950mm
Beeswax, black oxide, oil pastel, pencil crayon, oil paint, sharpies
The hazard of standing still, 2016
(A dead thing over a dying thing)
1200mm x 980mm
Beeswax, black oxide, oil paint, glitter
Hanging on to old structures, 2017
1200mm x 980mm
Beeswax, oil paint, oil pastel, pencil crayon, sharpies
Sometimes you have to let go of the expectations that you’ve tied yourself up against, 2016
1550mm x 985mm
Oil paint, spray-paint, beeswax, tape
Silly white girls, 2016
1000mm x 1000mm
Oil paint, beeswax, spray-paint
Taking the piss: what’s the point of change if we all remain inertly as we were?, 2017
650mm x 930mm
Oil paint, beeswax, crayon, varnish
Calamity of power: slipping off the edge*, 2016
930mm x 650mm
Oil paint, beeswax, spray-paint
Shifting balance and changing side *, 2017
760mm x 546mm
Oil paint, beeswax, spray-paint, ink
The pertinence of personal desire, 2017
760mm x 546mm
Oil paint, ink, beeswax, pencil crayon
Seeking a new perspective (reshaping the vision with which we see), 2017
782mm x 546mm
Oil paint and pencil crayon
