March 02, 2024 - April 02, 2024
White River, South Africa
Click here to view: Odette Saayman's Exhibition Catalogue
Change: Legendary Lowveld Landmarks
Artist Statement
2 March – 2 April
The only constant in life, is change.
Change in the natural environment presents itself in a myriad of ways through numerous phases - it is measured by comparing not only different ages, millennia, centuries and decades but is also evident from one year to the next, one season to another, month to month, day by day and sometimes even from one hour to the next.
The concept of this art exhibition is to share with the viewer a variety of these changes in nature that I have personally experienced and observed from my studio in the Lowveld, where familiar landmarks leisurely present themselves every day in a seemingly unchanged fashion, but as CS Lewis remarked: "Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different."
Selected scenes of prominent landmarks were captured in oil on canvas at various time intervals demonstrating both seemingly understated as well as dramatic changes in nature - timescapes varying from actual, tangible and obvious physical changes to more delicate psychological perception perspectives, thus evoking the viewer's emotional and even spiritual association, connection and response to subtle changes in the atmosphere and mood of vaguely familiar scenes. "Nature is a sublime storyteller in every setting." - A. Weiland-Crosby.
The exhibition consists of thirteen interrelated groups of paintings. Each such group pertains broadly to a different scene and is represented by a number of paintings within that group illustrating diverse aspects of the respective changes of that scene, over time. Each painting relates directly to the other paintings in its group and indirectly, on a broader level, to all other paintings in the exhibition, thereby enhancing the viewer's overall experience of and holistic engagement and interaction with the complete body of work.
However, none of the paintings in the exhibition is part of a fixed set of paintings or is dependent on any other painting for its existence, interpretation, appreciation and value as a separate, independent, standalone work of art.
Odette Saayman
March 2024
