A moment in time – that is human life. A sound recounts a moment in time.
5 January - 31 March 2025 Benguela Galleries, Hermanus
19 October - 9 November 2024 White River Gallery, Mpumalanga
15 September - 10 October 2024 Tina Skukan Gallery, Pretoria
This exhibition of work explores the processes of transmuting sound into word, image into sound, and word into image.
Sounds on/in my piano were composed by me in collaboration with Johan van Huyssteen, experimental visual and sound artist based in Seoul. All of the works shown here were newly produced for this exhibition, inspired by the experimentation with sound that commenced during the production for The Piano at the beginning of 2024.
Artist statement
The Moment works deal with my piano as object and instrument. In a previous 2024 series, The piano, my piano which survived the 2017 Knysna Great Fire also served as the central motif, addressing the theme of loss and recollection. In the Moment body of work I connect word, image and sound. The work was produced in expansion of a previous 2023 series, Song of the Philosopher, in which the relationship of word to image was investigated. My play with onomatopoeia – words that mimic the sounds they describe – explores the interplay between word, image and sound, as well as sound evoking both word and image.
My piano and its resounding ‘voice’; black-and-white notes (ebony and ivory); outer appearance; inner harp; keyboard; and mechanics are interpreted as figure tropes of the architecture of life. Conceptually the work is grounded in Heidegger's idea of Dasein, which denotes human beings in their everydayness, intertwining subject, object, consciousness and world. Heidegger’s notion of Geworfenheit (being ‘thrown’ into life) applies to all living beings, including death. Just as the piano is lifeless until played, bringing forth sound, so too does the female body bear life.
Each work in Moment is accompanied by a sound or small composition I played on the piano—on both its notes and strings—in collaboration with Seoul-based experimental visual and sound artist Johan van Huyssteen. The sounds are accessible via QR codes. Imagery of sound waves features in several works, symbolising the piano’s production of sound and the act of communicating voice.
I incorporate comic-book conventions such as dialogue balloons to evoke a stylised human narrative. These balloons reflect the highs and lows of human experience, suggesting the need to pause in the relentless flow of time. Dotted balloons suggest soft whispers, while jagged balloons represent loud noise or a scream. Mountain imagery, particularly peaks, is a recurring motif, symbolising a state of heightened consciousness. The works combine comic-book lines in black ink with expressive, emotive paint. A technique of layered polyphony—employed across physical and digital media—suggests consciousness across physical, mental, and virtual worlds.
