Article by :
Carl Becker
“…her country, our country, but also nobody’s country, a myth of country in a constantly changing continuum of life and light that exceeds all countries.” – Alex Dodd
On a sunny Saturday morning I ventured over Sir Lowry’s pass and through the wasteland of Somerset West to Stellenbosch. Destination: The Ilse Schermers gallery in Dorp Street, somewhere behind that mountain there.
Ah, the Cape: Big mountains, expansive views over the Atlantic, and… expansive, drab, treeless, dismal – looking squatter camps. Are there squatter camps around Istanbul, I wonder? I think of that ancient metropolis because the artist Diane Page lives there, and her poetically – titled show, ‘Walking on a rim of light,” was about to open.
Page has lived in the evocative city of light for the past 16 years, and the work is a selection from the past six or seven years. Stellenbosch feels Mediterranean today, and the work seems right at home here. A travelling show is a logistical nightmare – all those big heavy crates, expensive and difficult to move. Not to mention customs and god knows what other obstacles. Undaunted, Page found a guy to roll the canvases – and shipped them to her first port of call, the excellent Oliewenhuis museum in Bloemfontein. And now they’re in Stellies.
The artist and tickled -pink admirer
You’d call this work abstract, no doubt about it, but actually we’re led in and out of a field where form coalesces and then dissipates again. There are glimpses of stuff we know: here, figures and buildings, there a cobbled lane, a face in a crowd. We’re aware of the calligraphy of the brush, its agitated or doubtful scratchings that lead us into gentle swathes of colour. It’s not about the topography or the specifics of place. It’s more to do with the global stuff, like light and its emotive effects. I had a little thought that yes, art – particularly abstract art – really is an international language.
Not content with one speaker to open the show, Page brought in two, both of them Phds. Outrageous! Talking about art is hard at the best of times, but Alex Dodd and Julia Martin did the business. They brought the gravitas with not a whiff of pretension.
Funny things, exhibition openings. Well – heeled folk mixing with bohemians, art – lovers, networking artists and some who’re really just there for the wine. I met some new people and caught up with some I hadn’t seen for a while. And then it was enough and I walked out into the bright mid -day sun. There is the smell of money in Stellenbosch these days. The streets are littered with Porsche Cayennes and Dylan Lewis sculptures. Pavement cafes abound, where the young and suntanned take their sparkling drinks. But the old Cape persists through these changes, a message from another, distant, country.
The show comes down on April 30, go have a look if you can.