By applying imagery as short-hand for both her own art making process or specific (cultural) signs and figurations, Gerda Scheepers explores the medium of painting. Content and formal elements of painting are remixed through cut, copy and paste with the results actively pursuing ambiguity. Her paintings, as well as her sculptures, operate like devices for containment that, ultimately crucially, fail to contain. Scheepers delves into the techniques of collage and decoupage, using them as visual and linguistic instruments to disrupt the continuum of the familiar and enable a continuum between apparently disparate registers. Simultaneously, she employs collage as a tool to didactically, and sometimes humorously, imitate the brutal fragmentation brought on by life’s daily efforts. In Scheepers’ words, “the studio functions somehow as a capsule, where possibilities and restrictions play themselves out.”
Scheepers graduated from the Dusseldorf Art Academy in 2005 and won the Art Cologne Preis fur junge Kunst in 2006. Solo exhibitions include MOTHER BROTHER (blank projects, 2024), Chapel TV (ak contemporary, 2023), The Way The Lamp (ak contemporary, 2021), CologneRooms (Mary Mary Gallery, 2019), fabric actors (Galerie PCP, 2018), Body Corporate (Mary Mary Gallery, 2016), Sitcom (blank projects, 2016), PSYCHO SOCIO SURFACE (blank projects, 2014), A Social Life (Of Image) (Mary Mary Gallery, 2013), Modal Approach and Accent (blank projects, 2012) and Low and partial: Romantic Comedy (Kunstverein Nuremberg, 2012). In 2012, she was awarded the Marianne-Defet- Malerei-Stipendium.
—
curriculum vitae
1979 Born Tzaneen, South Africa
education
2001 – 2005 Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
1999 – 2001 Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Arnhem
solo exhibitions
2024 MOTHER BROTHER, blank projects, Cape Town
2023 Chapel TV, ak contemporary, Cologne, Germany
2021 The Way The Lamp, ak contemporary, Cologne, Germany
2019 Rooms, Mary Mary Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland
2018 fabric actors, Galerie PCP, Paris, France
2016 Body Corporate, Mary Mary Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland
2016 SITCOM, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2014 PSYCHO SOCIO SURFACE, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 A Social Life (Of Image), MaryMary, Glasgow, Scotland
2013 Ca. Dilemma, (collaboration with Marieta Chirulescu), PIGNA PROJECT SPACE, Rome, Italy
2013 Centerfold, Possible Press Volume 3: Issue 1, Philadelphia, USA
2013 Talking about 12 paintings, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 STUDIO BALLET, screening in the SL-public gallery of the Stockholm Underground, Sweden
2012 Low and Partial Romantic Comedy, Kunstverein Nürnberg – Albrecht Dürer Gsellschaft, Switzerland
2012 Modal Approach and Accent, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2012 Medium and Modality, OSLO10, Basel, Switzerland
2011 Rauminhalt Äquivalente, Micky Schubert, Berlin, Germany
2011 Art Berlin Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
2011 Relations short before Form, Koffer Ausstellungsraum, Berlin, Germany
2010 Written Spoken Pictures, Center, Berlin, Germany
2010 Inside Arrangement. International II, Mary Mary, Glasgow, Scotland
2009 Taras Bookies 2007/2009, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, Germany
2008 Inside Arrangement. International, Micky Schubert, Berlin, Germany
2007 The Office Projects and Others, Art Cologne Preis für Junge Kunst 2006 at Artothek, Cologne, Germany
2006 Things Prepared, Art Cologne 2006, Cologne, Germany
2006 (New Talents Program), Sprüth Magers, Cologne / Munich / London
2006 Come Garden of the Combed Rocks, Bonner Kunstverein, Peter Mertes Stipendium, Germany
2005 Lace and Traces, di.vitrine, Düsseldorf, Germany
2005 Linescape, Bar Ornella, Cologne, Germany
group exhibitions
2025 SUPERMÖBEL, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, Germany
2023 lO, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 Wenn's draußen grün wird, fällt mir nur noch Liebe ein II, ak contemporary, Cologne, Germany
2022 Where do I begin?, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2021 I have made a place, Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
2021 The thing itself exists everywhere, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2020 Love your symptom, but not too much, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2019 the head the hand, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2019 Russian Morning, MD Bar, Cologne, Germany
2019 Im Grunde ist es die Wahrheit (Essentially it’s the Truth), Magenta Plains, New York, USA
2018 open agenda, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2018 BACK TO THE FUTURE III, Abstract Art In South Africa: Past and Present, SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2018 blank, Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin, Germany
2018 Da Uno a Dieci, Galleria Massimo Manini, Brescia, Italy
2017 17, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2017 A Painting Today, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
2017 Alluring shapes, tempting spaces, Galerie Eva Meyer, Paris, France
2016 SHE MIGHT BE, Delmes and Zander, Cologne, Germany
2016 “Jeder sollte in der Lage sein, Kunst zu erwerben.”, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Recklinghausen
2016 Figure, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2015 Furniture: a sculpture exhibition, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2015 Group Show, Micky Schubert, Micky Schubert, Berlin, Germany
2015 Bild und Anpassung, Städtische Galerie, Waldkraiburg, Germany
2015 Back to the Future II: Abstract Art in South Africa: Past & Present, SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2014 Thinking, Feeling, Head, Heart, The New Church Museum, Cape Town, South Africa
2014 next thing you know, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2014 Danjuma Collection: One Man’s Trash (is Another Man’s Treasure), London, UK
2014 Part 1: Katharina Marszewski and Gerda Scheepers, Galerie Warhus Rittershaus, Cologne, Germany
2014 Inside Arrangement, Mary Mary Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland
2014 Bild Und Anpassung / Image And Adaptation, Palais Für Aktuelle Kunst, Glückstadt, Germany
2014 DON’T YOU FEEL ME, Galerie Micky Shubert, Berlin, Germany
2013 Hotel International, Galerie Warhus Rittershaus / Marsil Hotel, Cologne, Germany
2013 PAINTING FOREVER! KEILRAHMEN, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany
2013 Van Bommel Van Dam Prize exhibition, Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany
2013 This is the thing, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 blank projects in Johannesburg, Ithuba Arts Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2013 The Stairs, Algus Greenspon Gallery, New York, USA
2013 Van Bommel Van Dam Prize nominees exhibition, Van Bommel Van Dam Museum, Venlo, Netherlands
2013 LIGEGYLDIGT HVORHEN, BLOT UDENFOR VERDEN, Gallerie Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen, Denmark
2013 Provinz Neue Editionen, Galerie Vera Gliem, Cologne, Germany
2013 blank projects, Art Cologne/NADA, Cologne, Germany
2012 When Form Becomes Attitude, blank projects, Cape Town, South Africa
2012 3 Positionen zu Malerei, collaboration with Varda Caivano und Maria Chirulescu, Galerie Barbara Gross, München, South Africa
2012 Be with me, Galerie Peter Bergman, Stockholm, Sweden
2012 Cocaine – Blows my brain, Spor Klüüb, Berlin, Germany
2012 Re-Opening, Deweer Gallery, Otegem, Belgium
2011 The yarn beam and the revolving stage, Galerie Thomas Flor, Düsseldorf, Germany
2011 Dwelling, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, USA
2011 Gerda Scheepers & Alistair Frost, Mary Mary Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland
2011 Morgen, Provinz Editionen, Bochum, Germany
2011 SINGLE-club, Düsseldorf, Germany
2010 Ladies Room, Galerie Warhus Rittershaus, Cologne, Germany
2010 Drawing on Coats and Hindered Kindreds, Oktober, Düsseldorf, Germany
2010 The Importance of Being Earnest, Naumannstrasse 81, Berlin, Germany
2010 A Thing is a Thing in a Whole Which it’s Not, Temporary Gallery Cologne, Mauritiuswall 35, Cologne, Germany
2010 Dearie Does the Do not Care, Halle für Kunst E.V., Lüneburg
2010 Woodman, Woodman, Who Spare That Tree, Galerie Micky Schubert, Berlin, Germany
2009 Arrival Inside, Mary Mary, Glasgow, Scotland
2009 dok25a, Düsseldorf, Germany
2007 Elegance, Kölnischer Kunstverein (collaborative work with Thea Djordjadze and Rosemarie Trockel)
2007 We Stopped in The Colonnade, Hotel, London, UK
2007 Showing Landscape, Cologne, Germany
2006 Modus, Neue Kunsthalle St. Gallen (collaborative work with Thea Djordjadze and Rosemarie Trockel)
2006 I Could Chair This Dance, Simultanhalle, Cologne, Germany
2006 Bar Ornella auf dem Hügel, Kunst:Dialoge Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
2006 Teller und Unterschiebung, acapulco, Düsseldorf, Germany
2005 Regarding Düsseldorf – Junge Kunst in Düsseldorf, 701 e.V. Düsseldorf, Germany
2005 7, Sprüth Magers Lee, London, UK
2005 Fünf für Köln, Panzer und Schöne Aussicht, Cologne, Germany
2005 unitdèd, Plain Bar de Player, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2004 Cotton, Bone and Rock spread like a single Thing of thin and hard when wet with Ocean Water, Panzer
2004 Thea Djordjadze, Robert Elfgen, Gerda Scheepers, Sprüth Magers Projekte, Munich, Germany
2004 Rheinschau, Art Cologne, Sprüth Magers Projekte, Munich, Germany
2002 Klasse Rosemarie Trockel, Kunstverein Gelsenkirchen, Germany
awards and bursaries
2011 Marianne-Defet-Malerei-Stipendium, Kunstverein Nürnberg
2008 Arbeitsstipendium Kunststiftung NRW
2006 Art Cologne New Talents Prize 2006
2005 Peter Mertes Stipendium, Bonner Kunstverein
2004 Travel grant, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
independent projects
2005 – 2006 Bar Ornella (Maibachstraße, Köln)
Bar founded and run together with other artists, where exhibitions and art projects took place once a week.
2004 – 2005 Panzer (Thebäerstr. 14, Köln)
Exhibition space, founded and run together with Jan Meier and Simon Hemmer.
— publications
2023 Bestall, L. Gerda Scheepers in Vitamin C + : Collage in Contemporary Art. Phaidon Press, UK.
2016 Gerda Scheepers, blank projects.
2013 Door Between Either and Or, Kunstverein Munchen and BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE.
2013 Van Bommel van Damm Prize nominee show catalog, VanBommel VanDamm Museum.
2012 Low and Partial ROMANTIC COMEDY, Kunstverein Nürnberg Albrecht Dürer Gesellschaf.
2006 Come Garden of the Combed Rocks, Peter Mertes Stipendium, Bonn Bonner Kunstverein.
2006 Jongbloed, M. Entangled – Approaching Contemporary African Artists, Volkswagen Stiftung, Hannover 2006 Teller und Unterschiebung, Acapulco Düsseldorf.
2006 Automne / Frottée 06/07, in “Modus”, Neue Kunsthalle St. Gallen.
2006 Bar Ornella (Documentation 2005 – 2006), Bar Ornella, Köln.
2005 United Cool Hot Alone, Panzer, Köln.
2005 Regarding Düsseldorf, 701 ev .V. Düsseldorf.
— selected press
Shinners, K. Lump in the bed: Gerda Scheepers’ ‘MOTHER BROTHER’. ArtThrob [online] (published 26 April 2024)
Mashabela, K. Gerda Scheepers. [in review] [online] (published 8 February 2021).
Spens, C. Gerda Scheepers: Rooms, Studio International [online](published 26 March 2019).
Benmakhlouf, A. Gerda Scheepers at Mary Mary, The Skinny [online](published 5 August 2016).
Kawitzky, F. The One With the Couch: Gerda Scheepers ‘Sitcom’, ArtThrob [online](published 25 May 2016).
Artist Studios Gerda Scheepers, ArtThrob [online](published 12 September 2014).
Regarding Düsseldorf 6, 701 ev at the KIT Kunst im Tunnel, Content Counts [online](published 13 October 2011).
Goral, A. Arbeiten von Gerda Scheepers in der Kölner Artothek, report-k.de / Kölns Internetzeitung, [online](published 10 July 2007).
2023 Bestall, L. Gerda Scheepers in Vitamin C + : Collage in Contemporary Art. Phaidon Press, UK.
2016 Gerda Scheepers, blank projects.
2013 Door Between Either and Or, Kunstverein Munchen and BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE.
2013 Van Bommel van Damm Prize nominee show catalog, VanBommel VanDamm Museum.
2012 Low and Partial ROMANTIC COMEDY, Kunstverein Nürnberg Albrecht Dürer Gesellschaf.
2006 Come Garden of the Combed Rocks, Peter Mertes Stipendium, Bonn Bonner Kunstverein.
2006 Jongbloed, M. Entangled – Approaching Contemporary African Artists, Volkswagen Stiftung, Hannover 2006 Teller und Unterschiebung, Acapulco Düsseldorf.
2006 Automne / Frottée 06/07, in “Modus”, Neue Kunsthalle St. Gallen.
2006 Bar Ornella (Documentation 2005 – 2006), Bar Ornella, Köln.
2005 United Cool Hot Alone, Panzer, Köln.
2005 Regarding Düsseldorf, 701 ev .V. Düsseldorf.
— selected press
Shinners, K. Lump in the bed: Gerda Scheepers’ ‘MOTHER BROTHER’. ArtThrob [online] (published 26 April 2024)
Mashabela, K. Gerda Scheepers. [in review] [online] (published 8 February 2021).
Spens, C. Gerda Scheepers: Rooms, Studio International [online](published 26 March 2019).
Benmakhlouf, A. Gerda Scheepers at Mary Mary, The Skinny [online](published 5 August 2016).
Kawitzky, F. The One With the Couch: Gerda Scheepers ‘Sitcom’, ArtThrob [online](published 25 May 2016).
Artist Studios Gerda Scheepers, ArtThrob [online](published 12 September 2014).
Regarding Düsseldorf 6, 701 ev at the KIT Kunst im Tunnel, Content Counts [online](published 13 October 2011).
Goral, A. Arbeiten von Gerda Scheepers in der Kölner Artothek, report-k.de / Kölns Internetzeitung, [online](published 10 July 2007).
“This strange feeling of presence, made up of certainty and instability, scintillates at the edge of appearance while remaining more certain than any other visible thing."
Gerda Scheepers destroys things; and renders them new meanings. She dismembers then reconstitutes things into new forms that are constantly undergoing this same process of construction and deconstruction without aspiring finality - while simultaneously finding an unlikely state of (head)rest in composition. This fluidity is evident in works like Shelf for a Symptom, completed in 2019, in which the viewer is presented with a shelf that by all accounts, although shaped like a shelf, is not a shelf in any substantial, meaningful way. In this work a shelf is merely an idea, a gesture towards or away from that which shelves. Not only is it a piece of furniture, but a shelf is that which helps us compartmentalise the entirety of our lives. That which shelves separates the emotional from the physical, the real from the illusion, the church from the state, our most profound thoughts from the noise that rattles inside our psyches. That which shelves helps us put uncomfortable feelings away: feelings of trauma, hurt, loss, grief. These are just some of the ways in which a shelf loses its stability and certainty as a piece of furniture and begins to take on more transcendent qualities. And the Shelf for a Symptom is the physical rendition of this fluidity of form, but through fabric that can’t hold anything but itself or its own properties. In this way, the artist frees us from our conceptual prisons. In Platonic terms, Scheepers turns us away from the shadows projected on the walls of our caves and forces us to look directly at the source of this liquid light, which is unfathomable and uncontainable.
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Gerda Scheepers, Shelf for a Symptom (blue) (2018)
Now think of MOTHER. Think of BROTHER. Think of ROOF, of CLOUDS, of GAZA, of GOD and think of HEADREST. These are just some of the works on show and each painting, as though it were a note along a keyboard or an instrument in an orchestra, plays along this logic of fluidity and instability as a struggle to find new ways of seeing the world that is before us. MOTHER is the principle of creativity. It is MOTHER who has the fecundity and the capability to birth new forms and new structures that both liberate and imprison us. Some say masculinity flows from the Great Mother as an aspect of herself and is recalled and cancelled by her at will… there’s no going beyond her. Motherhood blankets existence. This play or tension between MOTHER and BROTHER is found in the works on show. MOTHER overwhelms in her bulging brushstrokes, and BROTHER excludes and reduces in order to achieve a clarity of imagery and appearance. In art historical terms this clarity is born out of the Apollonian impulse – the masculine impulse that necessitates certain exclusions and reductions so that the work can achieve a glittering chastity of form. Like Apollo and Dionysus, MOTHER and BROTHER are kindred spirits and counterparts whose creative tension is the process that gives birth to the harmony that appears on the surface of these paintings. But beyond this harmony of brush stroke, form, colour, and layers of paint, exists another plane of interpretations that is introduced to us by the strange feeling of presence in almost all of these works. This feeling is present in Tie Back, as that eye that is defined by the negative space where the hair doesn’t meet. It is in the dour smiling faces that appear in ROOF, it is in the X-rayed COPYSHOP GOD. In MOTHER BROTHER GAZA it appears in the six, bulging rings or discs or dark clouds that seem to be in the process of expanding or exploding in perfect, plastic form with the six grey marks of paint turned to us as if they were eyes, as if the painting had achieved a kind of self-consciousness and was assessing our own moral character as we look at the work.
Lwandile Fikeni is a writer, creative director and art critic.
Exhibition press:
Shinners, K. Lump in the bed: Gerda Scheepers’ ‘MOTHER BROTHER’. Artthrob (online) [published 26 April 2024]
Maurice Blanchot
Gerda Scheepers destroys things; and renders them new meanings. She dismembers then reconstitutes things into new forms that are constantly undergoing this same process of construction and deconstruction without aspiring finality - while simultaneously finding an unlikely state of (head)rest in composition. This fluidity is evident in works like Shelf for a Symptom, completed in 2019, in which the viewer is presented with a shelf that by all accounts, although shaped like a shelf, is not a shelf in any substantial, meaningful way. In this work a shelf is merely an idea, a gesture towards or away from that which shelves. Not only is it a piece of furniture, but a shelf is that which helps us compartmentalise the entirety of our lives. That which shelves separates the emotional from the physical, the real from the illusion, the church from the state, our most profound thoughts from the noise that rattles inside our psyches. That which shelves helps us put uncomfortable feelings away: feelings of trauma, hurt, loss, grief. These are just some of the ways in which a shelf loses its stability and certainty as a piece of furniture and begins to take on more transcendent qualities. And the Shelf for a Symptom is the physical rendition of this fluidity of form, but through fabric that can’t hold anything but itself or its own properties. In this way, the artist frees us from our conceptual prisons. In Platonic terms, Scheepers turns us away from the shadows projected on the walls of our caves and forces us to look directly at the source of this liquid light, which is unfathomable and uncontainable.
Gerda Scheepers, Shelf for a Symptom (blue) (2018)
Now think of MOTHER. Think of BROTHER. Think of ROOF, of CLOUDS, of GAZA, of GOD and think of HEADREST. These are just some of the works on show and each painting, as though it were a note along a keyboard or an instrument in an orchestra, plays along this logic of fluidity and instability as a struggle to find new ways of seeing the world that is before us. MOTHER is the principle of creativity. It is MOTHER who has the fecundity and the capability to birth new forms and new structures that both liberate and imprison us. Some say masculinity flows from the Great Mother as an aspect of herself and is recalled and cancelled by her at will… there’s no going beyond her. Motherhood blankets existence. This play or tension between MOTHER and BROTHER is found in the works on show. MOTHER overwhelms in her bulging brushstrokes, and BROTHER excludes and reduces in order to achieve a clarity of imagery and appearance. In art historical terms this clarity is born out of the Apollonian impulse – the masculine impulse that necessitates certain exclusions and reductions so that the work can achieve a glittering chastity of form. Like Apollo and Dionysus, MOTHER and BROTHER are kindred spirits and counterparts whose creative tension is the process that gives birth to the harmony that appears on the surface of these paintings. But beyond this harmony of brush stroke, form, colour, and layers of paint, exists another plane of interpretations that is introduced to us by the strange feeling of presence in almost all of these works. This feeling is present in Tie Back, as that eye that is defined by the negative space where the hair doesn’t meet. It is in the dour smiling faces that appear in ROOF, it is in the X-rayed COPYSHOP GOD. In MOTHER BROTHER GAZA it appears in the six, bulging rings or discs or dark clouds that seem to be in the process of expanding or exploding in perfect, plastic form with the six grey marks of paint turned to us as if they were eyes, as if the painting had achieved a kind of self-consciousness and was assessing our own moral character as we look at the work.
Lwandile Fikeni is a writer, creative director and art critic.
Exhibition press:
Shinners, K. Lump in the bed: Gerda Scheepers’ ‘MOTHER BROTHER’. Artthrob (online) [published 26 April 2024]
blank projects is pleased to present Sitcom, Gerda Scheepers’ third solo exhibition with the gallery. Comprising a series of new wall-based installations and sculptures, Sitcom represents an apex moment in Scheepers’ ongoing experimentation with techniques of collage and découpage.
As with the list of artwork titles arranged in the form of a poem, Scheepers uses collaging methods, drawn from Modernist traditions of sculpture and painting, as visual and linguistic instruments to both disrupt the continuum of the familiar and enable a continuum between apparently disparate registers. Simultaneously, she employs collage as a tool to didactically, and sometimes humorously, imitate the brutal fragmentation brought on by life’s daily efforts.
The exhibition’s title is reflective of this in that a sitcom, or situation comedy, is defined as an episodic comedy genre in which the lives of a cast of characters are played out in the context of a (familiar) shared environment – a suburban home, office – but with unlikely or even outlandish disruptions to their daily routines. The usual format of a sitcom has each episode broken up into a series of comical standalone scenes, which are often resolved in the final scene when disparate narratives are brought together by coincidence, in a comedic climax.
Sharing the title Sitcom is a group of sculptures, each representing an element of a deconstructed couch – the couch being a ubiquitous feature of sitcom sets – onto which Scheepers has découpaged the fabric silhouettes of body parts, sprawled in animated positions, like scenic freeze-frames. Other works on the show include map-like wall installations: pieces of fabric stretched into place, their shapes reminiscent of unlikely maps or floorplans with subtly marked surfaces that, in Scheepers’ words, act as “spaces of buffering, temporary addresses for things more distinct than concrete”.
According to Scheepers, “the studio functions somehow as a capsule, where possibilities and restrictions play themselves out. The materials that accumulate there are collected over longer periods in a ‘gathering’ phase, while the show is being conceptualized. Budget and deadline are very much tools determining aspects of process in the studio too, and soon the works have to make do with what is available. They enter a struggle between possibilities and limitations and sometimes simply my inabilities. The actual moment of starting the execution of a work always feels like a very unlikely physical activity to engage in, it doesn’t feel right. It’s through a certain endurance and interaction with this moment that the works develop”.
The materials Scheepers has used in this exhibition have come from an almost bland sculptural “palette”: basic art materials and processes like framing, as well as materials associated with domestic crafts. Instead, their specificity is developed through their application. Some of these materials are the residue of previous efforts or failures, but through having escaped the bin they have a legitimacy and identity of their own.
As with the list of artwork titles arranged in the form of a poem, Scheepers uses collaging methods, drawn from Modernist traditions of sculpture and painting, as visual and linguistic instruments to both disrupt the continuum of the familiar and enable a continuum between apparently disparate registers. Simultaneously, she employs collage as a tool to didactically, and sometimes humorously, imitate the brutal fragmentation brought on by life’s daily efforts.
The exhibition’s title is reflective of this in that a sitcom, or situation comedy, is defined as an episodic comedy genre in which the lives of a cast of characters are played out in the context of a (familiar) shared environment – a suburban home, office – but with unlikely or even outlandish disruptions to their daily routines. The usual format of a sitcom has each episode broken up into a series of comical standalone scenes, which are often resolved in the final scene when disparate narratives are brought together by coincidence, in a comedic climax.
Sharing the title Sitcom is a group of sculptures, each representing an element of a deconstructed couch – the couch being a ubiquitous feature of sitcom sets – onto which Scheepers has découpaged the fabric silhouettes of body parts, sprawled in animated positions, like scenic freeze-frames. Other works on the show include map-like wall installations: pieces of fabric stretched into place, their shapes reminiscent of unlikely maps or floorplans with subtly marked surfaces that, in Scheepers’ words, act as “spaces of buffering, temporary addresses for things more distinct than concrete”.
According to Scheepers, “the studio functions somehow as a capsule, where possibilities and restrictions play themselves out. The materials that accumulate there are collected over longer periods in a ‘gathering’ phase, while the show is being conceptualized. Budget and deadline are very much tools determining aspects of process in the studio too, and soon the works have to make do with what is available. They enter a struggle between possibilities and limitations and sometimes simply my inabilities. The actual moment of starting the execution of a work always feels like a very unlikely physical activity to engage in, it doesn’t feel right. It’s through a certain endurance and interaction with this moment that the works develop”.
The materials Scheepers has used in this exhibition have come from an almost bland sculptural “palette”: basic art materials and processes like framing, as well as materials associated with domestic crafts. Instead, their specificity is developed through their application. Some of these materials are the residue of previous efforts or failures, but through having escaped the bin they have a legitimacy and identity of their own.
Gerda Scheepers will develop an abstract situation at the gallery using new works. By pointedly referencing genres of classical art production (painting, objects, and drawing), Scheepers moves away from dualisms such as form/content and figuration/abstraction. As hybrid media, her works focus on psychological tensions that arise between images, graphic diagrams, and language. Scheepers invariably questions the material presence of images, destabilizing them through the use of ambivalent structures, or the simultaneity of subject and background. The exhibition title alludes to both the individual psychological landscape as well as its interaction with the bigger social landscape, and an abstract surface where they are held in tension.
Gerda Scheepers (b.1979 Tzaneen, South Africa) lives and works between Cape Town and Berlin. She graduated from the Dusseldorf Art Academy in 2005 and won the Art Cologne Preis fur junge Kunst in 2006. Recent solo exhibitions include A Social Life of Image, Mary Mary Gallery, Glasgow (2013), Modal Approach and Accent, blank projects, Cape Town (2012) and Low and partial: Romantic Comedy, Kunstverein Nuremberg, Germany (2012). In 2012, Scheepers was awarded the Marianne-Defet- Malerei- Stipendium.
Gerda Scheepers (b.1979 Tzaneen, South Africa) lives and works between Cape Town and Berlin. She graduated from the Dusseldorf Art Academy in 2005 and won the Art Cologne Preis fur junge Kunst in 2006. Recent solo exhibitions include A Social Life of Image, Mary Mary Gallery, Glasgow (2013), Modal Approach and Accent, blank projects, Cape Town (2012) and Low and partial: Romantic Comedy, Kunstverein Nuremberg, Germany (2012). In 2012, Scheepers was awarded the Marianne-Defet- Malerei- Stipendium.
Talking about 12 Paintings
is a small group of works in between painting
and sculpture,
with slightly dishonest ambitions towards the performing arts,
and actively jealous of the written or spoken.
:( Picture it :)
,
please
is a small group of works in between painting
and sculpture,
with slightly dishonest ambitions towards the performing arts,
and actively jealous of the written or spoken.
:( Picture it :)
,
please
Talking about 12 Paintings
is a small group of works in between painting
and sculpture,
with slightly dishonest ambitions towards the performing arts,
and actively jealous of the written or spoken.
:( Picture it :)
,
please
is a small group of works in between painting
and sculpture,
with slightly dishonest ambitions towards the performing arts,
and actively jealous of the written or spoken.
:( Picture it :)
,
please
