An extensive exhibition, Playoff, featuring sculptures and etchings by Gordon Froud and paintings by Lance Friedlande, is now on view at artSPACE durban in Millar Road, Stamford Hill.
Froud’s artworks consist of inter-related sculptures that use the repetition of forms and objects in various sizes to construct meaning. particularly with regard to DNA, babies, bacteria and viruses.
He has been actively involved in the South African and international art world as artist, educator and curator, and has exhibited on many solo and group shows in South Africa and overseas. He has also served on many arts committees throughout the country.
Froud has been a judge on many of the important art competitions from local to national level.
After graduating with a Master’s degree in sculpture from the University of Johannesburg, he now runs the sculpture department at the university.
Froud’s “viruses” hang in the gallery and the floating sculptures centre on small and large balls decorated with rubber teats, chess pieces, globes, test tubes, coloured lights and more.
Jenny Stretton, curator of the Durban Art Gallery collection, who opened the exhibition, said: “There is a tension in their use – Froud is simultaneously reverential and mocking. He calmly redeploys the item in the service of another form.”
Wherever you stand in the main gallery, the view differs. The “viruses” are potent and seem to get a life of their own as the viewer moves round the gallery.
Froud’s baby sculptures remind one strongly of former Durban artist Peter Schutz. Both artists have a unique vision that makes their work very powerful.
Friedlande has been involved in art most of his life, painting and drawing since he was seven.
Like many artists, he has had to work in the commercial world to subsidise his painting, but now paints full-time.
He uses animals and the background landscapes to give his work a distinct African mood.
His paintings search for a human condition through a series of portraits, with trees suggesting landscape and/or other environments.
Both the artists achieve profound complexity by using simple elements.
Their work is more than substantial. It’s an exhibition by artists for artists.
Playoff highlights similarities and differences between the activities practised by both artists, who so obviously find dedication, joy and playfulness in their creative art pieces.
Art results from man’s desire to communicate, and these two artists are doing this extremely well. The works of the two offer a duality or playoff against each other that makes the exhibition work well as an interesting two-person show.
This exhibition has travelled from Potchefstroom University to Oliewenhuis Museum in Bloemfontein, and will be on show at artSPACE durban until Saturday, August 6, before finishing its run at the Pretoria Art Museum.
Note that also on view in the front room at the artSPACE gallery is a taste of work by Ranjit Dahiya, a communication designer and an artist who has long been smitten by the rich history of Hindi cinema.
His exhibition features 24 hand-painted canvas works retracing the colourful history of Bollywood.
Check it out!