Pilgrim / Lehlogonolo Mashaba. Nathan Vuuren. Louis Olivier.

Art-Movie-Book attended the opening night of Pilgrim – the three-man exhibition currently showing at Lizamore & Associates on the gallery strip in Rosebank. Louis Olivier, Lehlogonolo Mashaba and Nathan Vuuren each individually explore the pilgrimage of the human figure, through sculpture, painting printmaking and collage, each drawing from their own experiences and interpretations.

Lehlogonolo’s work speaks of his own journey from a youth who hated reading to an adult who had gone through the process of falling in love with words and the philosophy of words and text. He spoke of how he was a numbers kid, who enjoyed biology and science and how this fueled his fascination with the microscopic view of text and the minute detail in his work. Like breaking words down to the smallest atom of their constitution in the same way that a human cell can be broken down to the smallest atom through a microscope.

Louis Olivier’s pilgrimage is that of his own evolving understanding of the body in space and the way in which our perception of the figure study changes when we no longer view the sculpture as a figure study, but as an object. Bronze, which he refers to as the ultimate medium, lends itself particularly well to this exploration of the human figure through sculpture and expresses his interest in the shape the body takes when different textures, lines and colours form their own language and influence the way we see the movement of these bodies in both the positive and negative space.

Nathan Vuuren explores the performative image of the self, as it has obsessively become documented through social media. The self reflexivity of these images that are calculatedly portrayed to the rest of the world and how this constant exhibition of the self  has become an almost voyeuristic journey for the viewer, as well as the creator of the image as expressed in Vuuren’s works in watercolour, glazes and layered paint. He very subtly also refers to the act of  spiritual introspection through his use of colour, and positioning of the body int the act of documenting the self.

Three very talented artists, whose work I wouldn’t mind having in my own collection. The exhibition will be running until the 22 November, so pop in and enjoy the journey.