ELIZE VOSSGÄTTER

(b. 1981 Johannesburg, South Africa)

“By observing the language of the natural world, we start to understand the patterns of existence.”

Elize Vossgätter’s work is concerned with our unnatural relationship to the natural environment.

Her primary medium is natural beeswax, which she soaks in toxic chemicals, impregnates with synthetic pigment and then works onto the canvas using heat. The constant tension between the organic and inorganic is palpable. Gouging into the multilayered and multicoloured wax sediment – an exercise in carving – the outcome is a surface structure reminiscent of a relief: a testament to sensual organic forms which evoke the physical laws of the natural world, from which she draws her visual vocabulary.

Recent bodies of work include ‘Natural Order’ and ‘Artificial Selection’. They focus on our failing cultural, political and environmental structures and the flux of finding a new balance in this post-natural world. She completed her Masters in Fine Art at Michaelis (University of Cape Town) in 2023. 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2024 Gutter Pop II, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2023 gutter pop, MFA show, Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town, South Africa

2022 Liminal Space, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2021 Artificial Selection, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2020 Natural Order, part of the Cubicle Series, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2017 limp, Smith Studio, Cape Town, South Africa

2015 In the end we’re all to blame, Commune1, Cape Town, South Africa

2013 Once there was, and once there was not, AVA, Cape Town, South Africa

2012 Sterntaler, AVA, Cape Town, South Africa

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2024

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2023

What I Feel When I Think About The Cosmos, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

Oddkin, Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town, South Africa

Under-water-love, Eigen + Art pop-up, Under Projects, Cape Town, South Africa

The Invisible Thread, AVA, Cape Town, South Africa

The Other’s Warmth, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2022

Spring, group show, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

Dak’art, biennale of contemporary African art, Dakar, Senegal

Things I’d like to remember, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2021

Summer 2021, Everard Read, London, UK

Oasis: 25th anniversary, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2020

Us, digital exhibition, Everard Read, South Africa

STILL, digital exhibition, Everard Read, South Africa & UK

win/win, exhibition of the official acquisitions of the State of Saxony, Leipzig, Germany

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, South Africa

2019

Verorten/ Entorten, Projektwohnung, Krudebude, Leipzig, Germany

Winter, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Zeitgleich/Zeitseichen, PingPong Kunstraum, Leipzig, Germany

Voila, Halle 14, Leipzig, Germany

2018

Home for the holidays, Summer Show, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2017

Buttersäure Senf, Pilotenkueche, Leipzig, Germany

BiPolar gallery, Leipzig, Germany

Another Antipodes Urban Axis Exhibition, Freemantle, Australia

2016

Surface / Subtext, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Open Studios, Art Omi, New York, USA

AKAA, with Smith Studio, Paris, France

Cape Town Art Fair, with Smith Studio, ‘The Conservationist’s Dream’

2015

Summer show, Everard Read gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

Two, Smith Studio, Cape Town, South Africa

1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, with Qubeka Bead Studio, London, UK

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Commune, Cape Town, South Africa

2014

Golden Haze, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa

Rust en Vrede, Cape Town, South Africa

2013

Summer show , Casa Labia, Cape Town, South Africa

One in a Million, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa

Archives and Collection, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa

2012

I’d rather be Swimming, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa

Impressions and Responses, Galerie Miz, Istanbul, Turkey

Our Fathers, AVA, Cape Town, South Africa

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with AVA, Cape Town, South Africa

Joburg Fringe, Johannesburg, South Africa

2010

Amani Festival of Visual Arts, Khayelitsha, South Africa

Vuleka Art competition and exhibition, Belville, South Africa

Conceptual Matters & Matters Conceptual, Erdmann Contemporary, Cape Town, South Africa

RESIDENCIES

June-Sept 2017 Pilotenkueche, Leipzig

June-July 2016 Art Omi, New York State

June-July 2012 Galeriremiz, Istanbul