Hazard Gallery | 12 November – 10 January 2016
Flux exhibition at Hazard Gallery from 5 November 2015 to 10 January 2016, features selected works from Sophia van Wyk’s Ontluikende on/ge-mak sculpture series together with a collection of paintings.
Van Wyk incorporates biomorphic forms in her artworks to explore the construction of her emergent cultural and gendered identity. Her cultural identity stems from historically defined conceptions of Afrikaner cultural and female gendered identity under apartheid. She approaches identity as having being influenced by personal and collective histories, yet simultaneously being in a constant state of flux.
In the Ontluikende on/ge-mak sculpture series van Wyk incorporates second-hand furniture with biomorphic forms. Tension and disruption is created between the interaction of the form and the domestic objects. The biomorphic form may be read as mauling the furniture in a ‘dangerous’ way, which leads to the destruction of the furniture piece as an ‘object of comfort’. Through these artworks she question her role as an emergent female Afrikaner in post-apartheid South Africa.
Van Wyk’s conflicting relationship between feelings of comfort and discomfort stem firstly from grappling with her Afrikaner legacy and her longing to construct an emergent ‘South African’ identity that stands apart from this limiting inheritance. Secondly, from her position as a post-feminist grappling with breaking away from the limiting Afrikaner female volksmoeder stereotype, by employing both masculine and feminine work techniques whilst embracing feminine complexity at the same time.
While her Ontluikende on/ge-mak sculpture series are influenced by memories from childhood to marriage. Van Wyk’s paintings focus on her new role as mother and the lies and myths surrounding giving birth. In her paintings she incorporates biomorphic forms and employ strategies of chance.
Sophia Van Wyk (born 1981 in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa) obtained her Bachelor of Art in Fine Art degree at the University of Stellenbosch, in 2003. She graduated from her Masters in Fine Art (Cum Laude) from the University of Johannesburg at the beginning of 2015.
Van Wyk has participated in a number of group exhibitions and earlier this year she had her first solo exhibition at the FADA Gallery in Johannesburg. Two of her sculptures were selected as regional finalists for the 2015 Barclays L’Atelier competition. Van Wyk works from her studio in Pretoria.