ELIZE VOSSGÄTTER

(b. 1981 Johannesburg, South Africa)

Living between Leipzig and Cape Town

BA(FA) University of Cape Town, South Africa

“The message of my work is waveringly optimistic and aims to show the innate balance of the transformation of our present reality; seeking to find our position in it.”

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.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2021 

Artificial Selection, Everard Read, Cape Town

2020 

Natural Order, Everard Read, Cape Town

2017 

limp, Smith Studio, Cape Town  

2015   

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

2013 

Once there was, and once there was not, AVA, Cape Town

2012   

Sterntaler, AVA, Cape Town

SELECTED GROUP SHOWS

2022

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

2021

Summer 2021, Everard Read, London,

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

2020 

Win/Win, Exhibition of official acquisitions for State of Saxony, Leipzig

Still, digital exhibition, Everard Read, South Africa

Us, digital exhibition, Everard Read, South Africa

win/win, Leipzig, Germany

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 and Subtext, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Open Studios, Art Omi, New York, USA

2015    

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

Two, Smith Studio, 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

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

ART FAIRS

2020

Cape Town Art Fair, Everard Read

2016      

AKAA in association with Smith Studio

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

2015  

1:54 Contemporary Art Fair, London, in association with Qubeka Bead Studio

Cape Town Art Fair, in association with Commune1 gallery

2012 

Cape Town Art Fair, in association with AVA gallery

Joburg Fringe festival, in association with FNB Johannesburg Art Fair

RESIDENCIES

June-Sept 2017   Pilotenkueche, Leipzig             www.pilotenkueche.net

June-July 2016   Art Omi, New York State            www.omiartscenter.org

June-July 2012   Galeriremiz, Istanbul                 info@galeriemiz.com