Gary Frier and Garth Erasmus are presenting an original exhibition which deals with the similarities and differences that make up portraits.

 The exhibition will be on display from 23 March to 5 April

 Opening night performance piece by Garth Erasmus
On 23 March @ 6:30pm, “No Quarter tet for Billy Maldini”
@Alliance Française du Cap - 155, Loop Street

Gary :

 Gary Frier is a Cape Town artistwho has participated in a number of South African and European residencies and exchanges.
 He derives inspiration from working with different forms of media ; his work, he says is a constant reminder of self and where he is. Gary has also created and produced a 2 minutes short film based on Edgar Allan Poe’s poem Anabelle Lee.

 "I find inspiration in many forms of media. Creating art for me is about constantly reflecting on my place in the world, discovering how to distill and interpret my interaction with what surrounds me and documenting that personal relationship."
 He began this work as an experiment, in which he endeavoured to find a figurative relationship between existing portraits and expressionistic memories of faces.
 As well as traditional techniques of drawing and paintings he has also made use of masks to illustrate the ambiguous nature of revealing and hiding personalities below the persona. persona - a personal facade that one presents to the world

Garth :

 Garth comes from rural roots in the Eastern Cape . He studied Fine Arts at Rhodes University (1978-80) before moving to Cape Town . He taught art from 1982-1997 before becoming a full-time artist.
 Erasmus is known as a “painter” who uses unorthodox materials.
 Like many artists of his generation Erasmus was acutely aware of the context and consequences of apartheid. Many of his early works incorporate direct political imagery, including stencil images of Mandela at a time when representations of Mandela were illegal, with the allusion to graffiti reinforcing the positioning of his art outside of the dominant fine arts frame.
 Although there have been changes in his person and in his art, Erasmus still sees himself as more of a cultural worker than an artist, with concerns about education and healing prominent in his thinking.
 He proposes a new style based on the markings made by fire. Even though he discovered this style by chance, he knew how to turn it to advantage as can be seen in these very original exhibits.

  Contact :

• Alliance Française :
  Jean-Jacques THEZARD : capetown@alliance.org.za
  
• Sites :
  www.friersart.com
  www.asai.co.za/gartherasmus
• CV :
  Gary Frier
  Garth Erasmus