Olivia Botha, Forgetting Seems Easy, 2022, oil stick and oil paint on canvas, 100 × 300 cm
Bode is pleased to present Something for Tomorrow, a solo exhibition with works by Olivia Botha.
“I just want to make beautiful art for a while; art that makes me happy.” – Olivia Botha
In the two bodies of work presented by Olivia Botha, Wilting Flowers produced in 2022, and her most recent works on paper produced as an ongoing series in 2024, she continues exploring a major shift in her practice. After a move away from working predominantly in video and installation-based work, necessitated in part by the confines of the Covid-19 lockdown and living in moments of temporary transit between Johannesburg, Cape Town and Berlin, Botha grounded her practice in painting and the principles of aestheticism.
The Aesthetic Movement in the late 1800’s aimed to escape the ugliness and materialism of the Industrial Age, by focusing instead on producing art that was sensuously beautiful – often referred to as 'art for art's sake'. Today, Aestheticism is acknowledged for the sweeping artistic changes it initiated, including revolutionary renegotiation of the relationships between the artist and society, between art and ethics, and between the fine and decorative arts.
Like these romantic and idealist artists, Botha’s turn to the cathartic potential of paint and pastel was also prompted by a strong desire to simply find joy in making art. As she embodied the loose and gestural mark-making in her painterly Wilting Flowers series, she gradually unravelled the anxiety, isolation, and intense grasping for (her)self that characterised earlier work. Beguiling portraits and exuberant flower arrangements are executed with spontaneous brushstrokes, invoking the feeling of dynamic movement. Movement in art is often used to enhance feeling and tension within a piece. Coupled with her bold and confident colour palette, Botha adeptly activates primal emotional responses in the viewer. The subdued tones and hues of Wilting Flowers betray the artist’s melancholy as she grieved both the loss of ‘home’ and sentimental memories of home, more akin to the Welsh word hiraeth which describes the feeling of being homesick for a place that may no longer exist or may have never existed. In her new sweeping abstract scenes on paper, an almost excessive eruption of line and colour stimulates a layering of senses. Visual imagery blends with a sense of sound, smell, and tactility, deepening the viewer's experience as we are invited to dance, dream, and give in to our burning desires.
Movement in art can also be used to express an idea such as the passage of time. This is accentuated by the poetic titling of her works to suggest an unnerving/embracing attempt to let go of things we cannot control and to rather savour a life ‘lived in the moment’. In April 2024 Botha was diagnosed with stage three cancer, which she is currently undergoing treatment for. Her new works, completed during moments of recovery, mark the passage of time. Life abruptly paused. Lying – still. Waiting. Much like her response to me in April when I asked whether she would ever return to the deeply personal mixed/multi-media works she made pre-Covid, her artistic practice right now is, for her, a form of self-care, a source of happiness. A glimpse into simple moments relished. Love, cherished. Gentle, poised hope in something for tomorrow.
Text by Candice Allison
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Olivia Botha (b. 1991, Bloemfontein, South Africa) graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art from Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town in 2017. In 2018 she received the Cassirer Welz Award in Johannesburg which accumulated to a solo show at SMAC Gallery. She then received the 2020 Visas pour la Création award from the Institut Français and completed her residency in Montesquieu-Volvestre with a solo exhibition. Afterwards, she moved to Berlin to attend her year-long fellowship at the DAAD Artist-in-Berlin programme (2021 – 2022). Botha still lives and works in Berlin. Her work has shown internationally at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Ljubljana; The Africa Center; Google Arts & Culture New York; Accademia Tadini, Lovere; and at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. Locally, her work has been part of notable exhibitions at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees; David Krut Projects, Latitudes Art Fair, RMB Turbine Art Fair, and the Absa Art Gallery.