The Cape Town Investec Art Fair has been celebrating artists and supporting the growth of the Cape Town art scene for 10 years. Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, the Cape Town Investec Art Fair has been curated around the theme of time, as we reflect on the achievements of the past decade.
Taking place at the Cape Town Convention Centre this past weekend, this prominent contemporary art fair in Africa brought together artists, curators, and journalists, globally and locally, to revel in the great works of art of our time.
“Investec Cape Town Art Fair continues to evolve and grow with those who support it. Together with this extraordinary visual arts community, we have created a platform for the advancement of all. Our progress has not been confined to the visual arts sector, because we have had a positive impact in all areas related to our practice,” Investec Cape Town Art Fair Director, Laura Vincenti, says.
With 135 new artists to Investec being showcased this year, the Art Fair continues its effort to support and grow a network of artists around the world. So, here are five artists whose work was showcased at the Investec Art Fair for the first time.
Gino Rubert is a Mexican-born multidisciplinary artist who has worked and studied worldwide. After completing his degree in Fine Arts at Parsons School of Design in New York, Rubert completed residencies in Italy, Japan and Germany. Now living and working between Barcelona and Berlin, Rubert continues to create surreal artworks that delve into magical realism.
His project, “Desire Shining”, was exhibited as part of the In and Out of Time showcase at the Investec Art Fair. The artworks depict romantic scenes of the every day, using acrylic and oil paint as well as photographs and other materials.
“Work is what gets me out of bed in the morning, and helps me sleep at night,” Gino says. Having worked as an artist for over 30 years, Rubert’s work has become a distinctive part of his identity. “Without things happening in my studio, I feel empty, insecure and even a sense of anxiety,” Gino adds. He is constantly inspired by the world around him and engages with the core aspects of the human condition: love, desire, and the fear of death.
“There is much more to being Muslim than wearing hijab,” Aneesah Girie explains. Born in Cape Town and raised in Johannesburg, Girie draws on her cultural and religious heritage in her work. She engages with themes of domesticity, femineity and religion, and seeks to create art that counters the stereotypes of Muslim women that are reductive and regressive.
The hijab, the headscarf worn by Muslim women, is a central point of interest to Girie, specifically the scarf as a carrier of one’s identity and history. Using scarfs that have been handed down to her by family members, Girie hardens the material that has been draped and framed, resulting in a hard, glossy exterior – disrupting the notions of the feminine, soft and flimsy qualities associated with the hijab. (Re)presenting the hijab in this way offers a new mode of seeing and interpreting the piece of fabric that holds so much political weight. Removed from its political space, the hijab can take on other meanings and modalities, forcing viewers to rethink, reinterpret and reimagine the hijab and its social and political place in society. Ultimately, Girie asks, “how do we begin to uncover, to recover, to frame and re-frame that of which both hold and withhold?”
Jean Luc Iradukunda
Moving between Rwanda and South Africa throughout his childhood, self-taught artist, Jean Luc Iradukunda represents his struggle with identity and the concept of ‘home’ in his work. The pieces being showcased at the Art Fair are inspired by the words from the Rwandan national emblem: unity, labour, and love of country.
“On one hand, these words are meant to possess a positive connotation for the average citizen of Rwanda, representing hope, belonging and community,” Iradukunda explains. “On the other hand, for those who have left Rwanda and now call it a foreign land, these words may hold a negative association with feelings of loss, detachment and loneliness.”
As a Rwandan immigrant living in South Africa, Iradukanda draws on his experience as an ‘outsider’ in his work, dealing with ideas of nationality and national identity as someone who has no sense of ‘home’ or ‘belonging’. The blue ‘alien-like’ figures that are the protagonist in most of his work are used to express the complex emotions and experiences of feeling disconnected, being separated from one’s sense of home and being constantly perceived as an outsider.
South African artist, Sotiris Moldovanos comments on the influence of social media on men’s fashion, through his satirical pieces. Moldovanos studied a Bachelor of Technology in Fine Arts at the Tshwane University of Pretoria and currently resides in Cape Town.
Moldovanos’s portraiture delves into surreal, optical illusions through the abstracted figures. While maintaining anatomical accuracy through the distinctive outlines and silhouettes, these figures are obscured by geometric patterns. Juxtaposing realistic figures with abstract patterns, Moldovanos plays with space and blurs the lines between the subject and the background.
“I explore the space between two-dimensional and three-dimensional imagery,” Moldovanos explains. In the closing distance between the subject and the viewer, he creates an illusion of space or rather a lack of space. He explains wanting to create a, “surreal sense of illusion where the viewer experiences uncertainty,” and so, mimics the experience of scrolling on social media.
Joana Choumali is a photographer and mixed media artist based in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. Choumali trained as a graphic designer in Casablanca and worked as an art director before leaving her nine-to-five to pursue her photography career. Inspired by the cultures around her, Choumali captures her experience as a Black woman living in the African continent and follows themes of identity and notions of beauty. In her latest collection, Ca Va Aller, Choumali embroiders on her images, weaving in her personal memories and experiences of the places she captures.
Her work has been showcased at Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, the Troppenmuseum in Amsterdam, and more places around the world. She has also completed residencies in Morocco and South Africa.
