FINE ART: Julia Teale
DENISE PENFOLD and Margaret Chetwin have more in common than the title of their joint exhibition Common Objects. Both are MBA graduates from UCT’s Michaelis School of Fine Arts and both now teach at the Cape Technikon’s School of Design. And although the exhibition is not presented as an explicitly collaborative effort, there exists a formal and conceptual dialogue between the two bodies of work akin to the subtle, wordless exchanges that one might witness between siblings.
The works on display are divided into ”collections” and ”series”, each defined according to a characteristic use of material. Three of these groupings are exceptionally well conceived and executed, one of these being Chetwin’s Pillow Series – nine sumptuously upholstered pillows, designed to heat, cut or grate.
Others are slit lengthwise and suggestive protuberances bulge from their brocaded openings. This interlacing of bedroom and kitchen has the disturbing effect of evoking the strife, desperation and passion that is so often suppressed beneath the myth of ”domestic bliss”.
The most explicit and telling of these pieces has a horizontal slit in the pillow, from which protrudes a clitoral piece of carved wood, into which five identical kitchen knives are neatly embedded. These objects are made with an almost surgical precision, and the obsessive attention to finish and detail lends to them a quality of acute anxiety and repressed rage. They are the lovingly crafted items of an old- fashioned bride’s trousseau turned nightmarish – the secure boundaries of a traditionally ”women’s world” turned topsy- turvy to reveal the oppressive structures beneath its sweet facade.
Penfold’s Mirror Series, comprising five mixed media assemblages, are far more emotionally restrained and tend to reveal their particular secrets more reluctantly. The associations mirrors have with perfect illusion and vanity are obstructed by the choice of materials – wood, linoleum, dull metals and oil paint – all stubbornly non- reflective.
What is represented in each is an abstraction of experience – the idea of distance, form, scale. Taken together they seem to present an argument for the subjective, unstable character of the visible, cataloguing the substrate shifts that occur in our apprehension of the world over time.
The third noteworthy grouping is Penfold’s series of chalk pastel drawings. These are collectively entitled Postcard Collection and depict some of the well-known monuments and landscapes and wild-life that might catalogue the average tourist comprehension of what constitutes South Africa. By deploying an almost painterly approach to the drawings, Penfold retrieves the images from the sheen of mundanity they invariable acquire, and they become moody and evocative, giving one the sense that these images are associated with personal memories for the artist.
By comparison, the remainder of the works on show come across as lightweight wall- and-floor fillers. Penfold’s Charm Collection, nine cast-resin objects are colourfully arranged on a wall and are pleasing in a kind of decorative way. A series of lino-cuts of the same objects – a gun, an African hair-comb, a pair of scissors, a report card, and so on – do little to tease the viewer into playing with their associative and possible meanings.
Chetwin’s ciment fondu Dressing Table series has an eerie quality evocative of abandoned houses, but its impact is diluted by the record player and radio in the same medium. These works detract from the impact of the show as a whole, which is unfortunate, as the best of the work by these two artists displays clarity, subtlety and a depth of vision that is more than simply pleasing or clever, but is rich in meaning and finely executed.#
Common Objects is at the Association for Visual Arts in Cape Town until April 19