Durban art picks: September 10 2010

Durban’s most interesting contemporary art gallery this week gets underway with a brace of exhibitions.

• Occupying the lion’s share of artSPACE durban is Roz Cryer’s Adornment in Borderland in which the erstwhile textile artist embraces her more expressionistic bent by channeling Turner and Rembrandt’s love of light by capturing some of that lambent magic in her own work in which she paints upon unmounted primed canvases that are then sanded down, cut up, embroidered upon and then once again paints again. Only when a work is able to stand in its own right as does she then paint her still-life objects upon the surface. Also on show is Caroline Birch’s exhibition entitled Urban Angel in which the mundance is made magnificent by the everyday being transformed into the heraldic.
  artSPACE durban, Millar Road, opening Monday September 13, 6pm. aSd is open from 10am to 4pm Monday to Friday and from 10am to 1pm on Saturdays and public holidays. Tel: 031 312 0793 Email [email protected] Visit www.artspace-durban.com / www.artspacedurban.blogspot.com

• As excitement builds toward the fifth MTN New Contemporaries Arts Award, the KZNSA Gallery this week opens a showcase of work by the four finalists in the competition. These, under the adjudication of Nontobeko Ntombela, Doung Anwar Jahangeer, Mokgabudi Amos Letsoalo, Brenton Maart, Gabi Ngcobo and Rat Western are Mohau Modisakeng, Donna Kukama, Stuart Bird and Kemang wa Lehulereloses.
  KZNSA Gallery, 166 Bulwer Road. Opens Tuesday September 14, 6pm. Closes October 9. Tel: 031 277 1705 Email [email protected]