Jo'burg art picks: January 20 2012

Recently “discovered” and self-taught Limpopo artist John Phalane’s exhibition, Malete, is a series of interesting maps.

These provide a surreal bird’s eye world view.

Phalane uses coloured pencils, with vivid greens, purples, oranges and pinks blending memory and imagination to recreate routes in Limpopo and around Johannesburg, where he once worked as a taxi driver. Some of his idiosyncratic works are extraordinary in their execution and intricacy. Phalane, who is in his mid-50s, only turned his hand to art in 2004. He initially tried to market his work through a gallery in Polokwane, but it was only last year, after he approached the Art on Paper gallery, that his art career started to take off.

Art on Paper, 44 Stanley Avenue, Braamfontein Werf, until January 28. Website: galleryaop.co.za.

■ Enter/Return is the debut exhibition of a new photographic and digital print studio called ILLumin art/works. The title of the exhibition refers to core aspects of the business’s service to the public. It will have a strong online presence that will allow customers to access and interact with the pictures taken by some of South Africa’s most gifted photographers and photojournalists. These beautiful, intelligent and inspiring images will have a strong focus on the African experience. The opening show features the works of Andrew Bannister, Thuys Dullart, John Hogg, Andreas Vlachakis and Nadine Hutton.

ILlumin art/works, Studio 23, Arts on Main, 264 Fox Street. The gallery opening is on January 26 at 6pm. Tel: 083 284 4239.