OPERA singer Jodie Khan’s potent voice seeps into every inch of the gallery. Responding in real time to her vocal acrobatics is painter Anastasia Pather.
Dipping her bare hands into a tin of black paint, the Johannesburg-based semi-abstract artist allows her fingers to find their own sweet spots on a large canvas in front of her.
Titled The Ocean Is Pouring From Your Eyes, it is one of several pieces she’ll complete here in Cape Town as part of her first exhibition, Meeting You.
“Joburgers have this general idea of the city and what life’s like here. I used to visit on summer trips, so I too had some kind of experience of it as a tourist destination,” Pather recalls.
“This time, coming here to work, it was very different. Because my paintings are abstract based, I really need to understand my environment first in order to get a sense of artistic direction.”
Ultimately, it was how the relationship between Pather and 99 Loop Gallery came to be that provided the biggest inspiration for her.
“Initially, my relationship with them came about virally. This seems to be the way all modern connections are made these days: through screens and social media.
“This process is difficult to imagine due the traditional, more intimate nature that is a gallery space. Relationships between them, their artists and their audiences are usually forged over much more personal mediums.
“This got me thinking of how my idea of Cape Town, as a former fleeting tourist, will change now that I’ll be immersing myself in its spaces.”
Before heading down here, Pather first finished five paintings in Johannesburg. They were inspired by two overarching perceptions she then had of the Mother City.
“The first was a visual reference of the mountain and surrounding ocean. Looking at it, these two visual references become a frame for the city, and everything that goes on within its brackets.
“Secondly, having this complex history of it being the Cape of Good Hope, I also thought of the bodies being brought here via the sea over the past few hundred years.
“The sea and mountain would, albeit from another angle, also be the first frame of reference of the city for those arriving here via ships.”
While those five initial paintings were created by her as an “outsider”, after arriving she actively shifted her focus and started treating the city and its creatives as her muse.
“Part of this involved collaborating with local artists across various disciplines. Ultimately, this culminated, among others, in this large artwork, The Ocean Is Pouring From Your Eyes, created live in the gallery during the exhibition’s run.
In addition to Khan’s abovementioned performance, jazz quartet Saxit! and poet/theatremaker Koleka Putuma have also stopped by for a series of collaborative appearances.
“I believe inspiration comes from many perspectives. The same way I’m visually interested in other artists, so too am I audibly appealed by their work.
“I love combining things that make me curious within my art, so I thought the best way to take this idea to the next level was to use these collaborators as mediums.”
Pather refers to the transience of “jazz bonding” to help illustrate how this creative process works.
“Musicians will get together, start off with nothing, and be able to feed off each other’s energy. Their aim is to create something that could to some extent not work, but to another also beautifully harmonise.
“This kind of risk and chance involved with creative relationships was important to me here. I specifically did not discuss what we were going to do beforehand with each collaborator.
“Everything had to be spontaneous, almost like in the same way you’d meet a potential lover in a bar. While you’re initially attracted to one angle or part of them, as you get to know them better your view of them and your surroundings deepen.”
It’s both strange and exciting, says Pather, being able to ‘meet’ these individuals she had only known on a practising level thus far. The results pleasantly surprised her in every possible way.
“Jade (from Saxit!) and I had collaborated once before, but in a completely different context. This time I said to her: ‘You surprise me, and I’ll be ready.’
“Jodie appears to be a sweet, fresh-faced young girl. That is, until she opens her mouth to unleash those powerful noises. At one point her sound waves were physically moving my canvass!
“Koleka’s performance (she recited her poem, Water), in turn, had these huge moments of silence. They were very short but quite loaded, and you could feel the emotion that she pas projecting.
Each performance therefore feels different, and makes her paint differently, because each moment is “a genuine surprise” that influences her tempo, movement and hand gestures.
Pather continues that she paints for hedonistic reasons. In that sense, the process can be very similar to falling in love.
“Why you love someone, and why you want to love someone, are initially for selfish reasons. But then the experience expands, and grows into its own beautiful entity.
“As a process painter, I’m interested in the relationship between myself and the medium. In a sense, the finished painting is not as important as the process itself.”
l Pather’s Meeting You showcase can be seen until Friday, 021 422 3766