Material Tales: Gestures of Abstraction: Taqwa Ali, Kim Bartelt, Tonia Calderon, Elke Foltz, Naomi Lisiki, Senzeni Marasela, and Georgina Maxim

Told by letting material, form, and gesture speak, the group exhibition with works by Taqwa Ali, Kim Bartelt, Tonia Calderon, Elke Foltz, Naomi Lisiki, Senzeni Marasela, and Georgina Maxim gathers tales of abstraction. Each approaching the discipline of abstraction in her very own narration, Material Tales: Gestures of Abstraction highlights the multimediality and interdisciplinarity within the artistic field.

 

The exhibition’s tale moves along Kim Bartelt’s serene symmetry of geometrical forms layered on the canvas as paper cut outs, onto Elke Foltz’s organic gestures which she accents and expands by collaging bits and pieces of sketches, studies, or drawings upon the surface. While Foltz integrates the exposed canvas as part of the work’s visible essence, Taqwa Ali, Tonia Calderon, and Naomi Lisiki fill the space with color and scenic abstract movement. Shifting beyond the flat picture plane into another materiality of sculptural quality, Senzeni Marasela’s and Georgina Maxim’s works made from fabrics and wool play with the material’s ascriptions and heritage while at the same time blurring boundaries between object, sculpture, and installation. 

 

Throughout the exhibition, materials become storytellers, and abstraction turns into a tactile archive of gestures and memories.