Kernel Group Exhibition

ARTISTS:
Nina Barnett, Githan Coopoo, Grace Cross, Io Makandal, Daniel Malan, Bulumko Mbete, Hanna Noor Mahomed, Yolanda Mazwana, Nabeeha Mohamed, Talia Ramkilawan, Guy Simpson, and Sitaara Stodel.

Please join us for the opening of a group exhibition curated by Grace Cross and Nabeeha Mohamed, that brings together 12 interdisciplinary artists showing sketches alongside their completed works. The interdisciplinary artists showcase a broad range of disciplines from textile, sculpture, painting, video to installation work. The exhibition opens Thursday, 8th October at 5pm within the Mason’s Press complex in Woodstock, and concludes on the 27th October.

‘Kernel’ occupies two gallery spaces; one larger space that displays artists’ finished artworks alongside the original sketch that the artwork sprung from, and one looser, smaller salon that functions as a drawing room for artists’ experimental sketches. 

The show explores the transitional space that occurs in the artist’s studio between idea and artwork. The quick dotted line that marks the pathway, shown shoulder-to-shoulder to the real thing. The sketch (be that post-it note with three words etched into it, maquette for a sculpture, or a snatched piece of paper composing hastily drawn figures) is an urgent and necessary pathway for something to emerge. It’s these kinds of deceptively small ideas that flutter, smolder and leap us into the fully flamed world.

‘Kernel’ is an expansion of the private studio into the gallery space, from small to big, kernel to whole, seed to plant. This is the place from which artist’s make; sketching the thing that is almost, until it is. Where they prepare the terrain and water the seeds for fertile ideas to grow. Sometimes the most nourishing part of an idea is the soft teething ground where those small milk teeth begin to protrude, before we masticate, swallow, and digest it.

After so long of living virtually, through these long hard months of the COVID-19 pandemic, ‘Kernel’ displays materiality, normally witnessed within the artist’s studio walls, publicly, as a celebration of the wellspring of inventiveness. The salon drawing atelier provides an opportunity for people to physically page through artists sketches in the flesh after so long of not being able to.

The artists featured in this exhibition bring a tender reflection on the toll the pandemic has exacerbated within our society. The diverse practices of each artist intersect with different forms of activism which oppose gender-based-violence, transphobia, homophobia, climate change, and structural racism. The artists would like to use the exhibition as a vehicle to support communities in need and continue their commitment to social justice. 

As such 10% of all sales from the exhibition support a charity of each artist’s choice. We are supporting the foundations, Equal Education, Femme Projects, The Frida Hartley Shelter, Grace Vision, Kheti’s Foundation, The Mal Foundation, Project Dignity, Rape Crisis Cape Town, The Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women, and The Scalabrini Centre.

Please join us for a walkabout, led by the curator’s Grace Cross, Nabeeha Mohamed and Pammi-Joy Oppenehimer, on Saturday, 24th October at 11am. 

Viewing by appointment only. Contact Pammi-Joy, pammijoy@gmail.com, for enquiries and requests for the separate exhibition drawing-room catalogue.