Opening on Tuesday 9 September at 6.30pm

Opening by Cheryl Gage M.A.F.A. Wits

With performances by Stompie Selibe on flute and Jean Baptiste Kananwe on piano

Marina Aguiar, a distinguished South African artist who recently participated in the Biennale Internazionale Dell’Arte Contemporanea Citá di Firenze in Italy – will exhibit her latest series “The Muse and Shaman” at the Alliance Francaise gallery.
This is a must-see exhibition especially for those who are not familiar with the work of this world-renown artist.

The series takes the form of bronze sculptures accompanied by etches and mixed media works.

Engendered by her reflections on the fusion of cultures in South Africa after the demise of the old regime and the emergence of a democracy, Marina has been working on this series for ten years.

The works signify the interaction between the Western and African cultures by using the Greek Muse and the San Shaman as points of departure for this exercise. The Shaman deity is depicted with an eland’s head, sacred to the Bushmen.

Marina describes herself as a Euro-African Female Christian Artist, and focuses on her place in this continent as an Afrikaner and a White Child of Africa. She aspires to create works that transcends boundaries and form new images, which embody a spirit of dignity and acceptance.

Her art mirrors her desire to see compassion and recognition of the heterogeneous cultures and values of the divers peoples of Africa.

Marina’s career spans more than 30 years. Born in the Free State, she attended art colleges in Bloemfontein, Durban, Johannesburg and the University of South Africa in Pretoria.

During the late seventies and eighties she worked and lectured in Namibia. Her relocation to this country with its open spaces, sand, bones and mirages seemed preordained.
“It was here that I found myself as an artist – the essence of desiccated shapes of sand and bone to express the transitory nature of matter”, she remembers. In the mid eighties she relocated to the Eastern Cape and eventually returned to Johannesburg in the early nineties where she is still resident.

Marina Aguiar is a South African artist who has found wide recognition overseas. Besides exhibitions in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, she has also been invited to exhibit in the German Triennial-Frenchen 1983 and 1990 ; in Monaco, the International Prix Contemporary Art 1984 ; In Italy, the Biennale Cagliari – 1984 ; Venice 1998 and the Trevi Biennale 1998, France – the International d’Art Contemporian in Paris 1986 ; and the American Academy in 1984. In Sweden, the 4th International Exhibition of Female Artists in Stockholm – 1997 ; the United Arab Emirates – Sharjah Biennale 1999 ; Slovenia – Art on Paper World Festival in Ljubljana in 2001 ; and in Canada, the Cultural Exchange of Graphics in 2002. Her most recent presentation was at the Biennale Internazionale Dell’Arte Contemporanea in Florence, December 2007.

Accompanying her September exhibition, her poem :

Venue
Gallery Gerard Sekoto
Alliance Française of Johannesburg
17 Lower Park Drive corner Kerry Road
Parkview - opposite Zoo Lake

The exhibition continues until Saturday 20 September.

Gallery hours
Monday - Friday : 9 am - 6 pm
Saturday : 9 am - 1 pm

For more information
Contact Marion
culture.jhb@alliance.org.za
011 646 1169