Fine Arts Students Exhibit Works in Progress

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The Centre for Visual Arts (CVA) at UKZN held its Works in Progress exhibit at the Jack Heath Gallery in Pietermaritzburg, featuring works by Master’s and doctoral students with an emphasis on the creative progress made thus far in the academic year.

The exhibition was set up by students whose work is on show and installed by CVA technicians, Mr Khulekani Cele (Printmaking) and Mr Tsholofelo Moche (Ceramics).

CVA lecturer, Dr Jessica Draper said: ‘It is becoming somewhat of a tradition for our postgraduate students to showcase their works in progress at the beginning of each semester – this exhibition was the latest offering. It gives students space to experiment. Each student chooses a work (or works) that they are grappling with and in this way the works are removed from the confines of their studio space and placed in an alternative space to see what questions and responses they may invite.’

Student, Ms May Okafor’s work interrogates the process of creating ceramics as a form of passage rite. She considers the limen and the social implications of rites in a ritual ceremony. ‘In this installation piece I have formed the clay material using my bare hands and have deliberately imprinted finger marks on them in metaphorical semblance of the way people are formed and defined as social beings during performances of initiations rites,’ she said.

Another student who is a judge in the Labour Court of South Africa, Mr David Gush, also exhibited his works titled: WHAAAAAAT. ‘My piece is a comment on the plethora of mindless social media comment. In the “hard hats” I use terracotta clay as a construction material in order to contrast its conflicting elements of strength and concomitant fragility,’ he said.

Ms Penny Forder who is researching a practice-led Master’s degree, worked on a series of self-portraits generated from basic pre-linguistic feelings exploring aspects of chance, sensation and femininity.

Words: Melissa Mungroo 

Photographs: Paul Hildyard and supplied