PRESS RELEASE
ELIZE VOSSGATTER: Gutter Pop II
Jul 10 – Jul 31, 2024
Everard Read Cape Town is pleased to present Gutter Pop II, a solo exhibiton by Elize Vossgätter.
“Humankind possesses an ingenious ability to shape and reshape nature. We ceaselessly innovate and imitate, propelled forward by the forces of capitalism, aspiring to the ever-more, ever-new and ever-better.
In so doing, we have manufactured materials far abstracted from nature which are forced to integrate with the organic processes of biodeterioration, altering the natural mechanisms of recuperation and growth that the planet depends on.
Wax has become my primary medium over the last 8 years; I engage with it as both material and metaphor. Wax is a material whose vulnerability to temperature and contradictions of state became a perfect medium with which to observe a changing planet in the face of our rising climate crisis. Following an urge to investigate this medium in a more theoretical environment, I dedicated the past 2 years to an MFA at University of Cape Town.
Due to a toxic reaction I had to the chemicals in my studio, I was forced to change my process to a more organic one, instead using natural elements to work with the wax. This resulted in a swarm of bees discovering my studio. Gradually removing wax from the studio to their hive, they have become co-producers.
The shared economy of wax became the analogy which has woven its way throughout my thesis: integration, entanglement, hybridisation. Nature does not exist in a state of separation; binarity is null. The boundaries between the natural, synthetic and digital worlds have disintegrated and no one ‘thing’ can be explored in isolation. ‘Gutter Pop’ explores this overflow of industry and synthesis into the organic landscape, giving rise to painterly-sculptures and sculptural-paintings which cross-reference and resist the boundaries of their own surfaces. Nothing is constant. Everything is in constant motion.
As we begin to reckon with the legacy of abstracted waste in our future ecologies, we seek ways to restore a world that has been undone. Technological advancements like AI and gene editing in synthetic biology are enabling new ways to preserve or mimic natural processes, with the potential to accelerate conservation efforts. In the process of repairing what we have broken, by layering human intervention onto human interference, what strange natures are we making?”
Opening reception: Wednesday 10th July - 6pm
Artist walkabout: Saturday 20th July - 11am
