'Realm' An Urban Enquiry. New works by Gabrielle Raaff and Lorenzo Nassimbeni at Salon 91. Opening 7th September at 7.30pm

The show runs until the 1st of October.

This is a brand new body of paintings. The works are in watercolour and I have taken my obsession with rooftops to a new dizzy height. Join us for a glass of bubbly on the opening night or make sure you get to see the show before it comes down on the 1st.

'Realm' an urban enquiry....

Urban landscapes can reveal much about a community’s interior , and the emotions that drive the human beings that inhabit it.

People get scared, and people make themselves feel safe. Our houses keep out others and protect us from danger….. even from each other. We fear the other , but we easily get lonely. Neighbourhoods keep help close at hand and share out our risk. A community of private spaces, each an architectural edifice showing personal territory but accumulating to describe the community.

Satellite perspectives and high-rise buildings can elevate the voyeur to where the homogeneity of the quest for individualism is clear but also to where one can glimpse the entire face of the community.

In Realm I referenced actual neighbourhoods and sections of Cape Town, the paintings reach for a deeper abstraction hoping to reveal more intrinsic signs of community; compositions look at archetypal symbols of safety, cohesion and defense.

Gabrielle Raaff and Kobus La Grange Opening at Dorpstreet Gallery, Stellenbosch

A brand new series of paintings plus a new year's splurge of colour just for a change.
I will be showing work with Kobus La Grange who makes beautiful figurative sculptures in found wood. It should be a good mix.

Please join us for a drink at the opening of our show 'Relation' at The Dorp Street Gallery in Stellenbosch on Saturday the 5th of Feb 2011 at 11am.
Unfortunately their website is a touch out of date! Their new address is Oude Bank, 10 Church Street (opp Vide e) tel 021 8872256

Exhibition runs until 28th Feb 2011.

Hope to see you there.

The Life of a Princess

I have been soaking up the sun and the good good life at my parent's beach house in Kommetjie for the last month! Well I am growing a baby so I reckon I deserve it. My sweetheart is being a clever International artist and working out his residency in Basel Switzerland til early March. Visit his blog www.justinfiske.blogspot.com to see more. It'll be a tight squeeze but I am confident he will be home in time to help me bring our collaboration into the world.

I have one more group show which I will be making new work for but otherwise it is lots of rest and practising my pain relief breathing skills while standing in the icy Atlantic (a good suggestion from Ciska my midwife!)

I wish you all a splendid New Year.

Merry Christmas

I have Snowflakes available in LED lighting.
They are pretty gorgeous all year round really!

It's that time of year again!

Please join all of us at 8 Lytton Street for a drink to celebrate another successful year!

Google Earth Joburg

In continuation of my earlier Dislocation series that were selected for Spier Contemporary 2008, I decided to make a series of more complex rooftop paintings of areas surrounding Nirox, like Brixton and Soweto that act as a stark comparison of the privilege of owning and working on this extent of land. I managed to complete 3 and am busy on the fourth painting of Houghton.

They are all watercolour on Fabriano.
If all goes well they may become part of the new BA First Class Lounge at Oliver Tambo Airport.
Hold thumbs!

And some in ink

I hope to take these much further. They need to be large and wild.