We end the exhibition where we started
Frank Kilbourn’s thoughts on Paul du Toit’s ‘Modern Primitive’ that ends this week.
Edition of 7 available in painted bronze
Opening Speech by Frank Kilbourn, executive chairperson, Strauss & Co.
It is my pleasure, Lorette, Ilse and everyone present, to share a few thoughts with you on an enigmatic artist, Paul du Toit.
Paul’s journey with art started at the age of 11 when he was confined to a hospital bed while being treated for rheumatoid arthritis in 1976.
To keep himself busy (and maybe to escape the confinement) he read books about Picasso and Miro and started drawing portraits – being motionless sharpened his observation skills and allowed him to experiment in drawing movement and expression.
One can say that “line drawings” became the foundation on which his artistic practices was built. From the beginning Paul sought to develop his own style and to be free of the limitations of what the establishment would call “good” or “high/serious” art, owned by neither inspiration nor African artistic tradition, although he was clearly drawn to abstraction -from inception almost – although in a predominantly expressionistic fashion.
I have never seen a work by him that is merely defined by form/structure/colour only – there is always an energy, an emotional presence that pulses inside Paul’s works, whether it be paintings or sculptures.
Paul came from an artistic family – his aunt Elizabeth van der Sandt was a full-time painter – and she not only stimulated his interest in art but inspired in him a lifelong quest for knowledge – as the thousands of art books he acquired throughout his life, testifies to.
His schooling was in the Roodepoort area and school was an unhappy place for Paul, other than when he played in school’s punk-rock band and most importantly, when he met Lorette in 1980 – a supporting, loving and inspirational relationship that was invaluable to him in life, as it is now for his legacy – something that deserves our respect, admiration and support.
Paul’s illness and learning difficulties while at school, in my mind, excluded him from mainstream and structured art education. In fact, he seemed to have learned most from deeply meaningful experiences he encountered as well as from his own reading and research on the internet.
Several experiences seemed to have shaped his artistic vision and desire to create:
· His illness, and consequent exposure to images of the works of Miro and Picasso.
· His visit to a circus in 1977, observing the clowns and their interaction with false and real, happiness and sadness, the painted masks they wore.
· His exposure to Michelangelo’s David in a first overseas trip in 1992. This initiated a lifelong interest in sculpture.
· A visit to Paris in 1994, which lead to a formative exposure to sculptures made from industrial material, and subsequently a collaboration with Willie Bester in 2001, which allowed him to sculpt with industrial metal.
· Every international exhibition, whether it be Paris in 1998, Toronto in 2002, New York in 2004 and 2005, which events inspired him with new energy, new materials to consider.
· As we know, their holiday in Zanzibar in 2002 and his observation of and fascination with the dhows and the people sailing them. This caused a change in his artistic direction which we are witnessing today. 12 sculptures were created in that series; works with evocative names such as “On Solid Ground” and “Adrift”, “Waves of joy”, “Balancing Act”, “Modern One” and of course “Boat People”.
In 2004 he made unique mixed medium sculptures using steel, fiberglass etc. In 2005 Paul created monumental sculptures in wood painted with automotive paint. In 2007 he uses polystyrene as a formative base, and later also casted works in bronze and painted them with automotive paint to create monumental works like “Four Square”. Three life size sculptures, made from aluminum that was sand casted, were exhibited in 2010.
I am stating all of the above to demonstrate Paul’s relentless quest to learn and experiment and innovate, to push the boundaries, to express his individuality…..
Notwithstanding the constant exploration of a variety of media and subjects, Paul’s main interest remained the human figure, whether in painting or sculpting, throughout all this time.
In fact, these two practices, painting and sculpture, were strongly interlinked.
Ashraf Jamal wrote a powerful and insightful intro for the catalogue of the exhibition we are privileged to view here at Tokara today, and I encourage you to read and reflect on his contribution.
I would like to conclude by sharing my observations about Paul’s work, not as an expert, but as an art lover:
· Other than in the Zanzibar series, Paul’s works are dominated by primary colours, with a strong, emotive content.
· His figures are often clearly outlined, reminding one of a contemporary artist like Julian Opie.
· I sense the influence of Miro, Picasso, Dubuffet, Andy Warhol and the pop art movement throughout.
· There is a cartoonlike dimension to a lot of his work – (in SA , it reminds me of Conrad Botes and Norman Catherine).
· There is a childlike/or primitive element to a lot of his works as well as a confrontational, cutting-edge side, creating a dynamic tension between these forces.
· Paul combines monumentality with playfulness in a wonderful way.
· He seems to revel in being an outsider while being extremely serious about his artwork.
· There is something comforting about his drawings and sculptures and subject matter, but his execution often leaves us perplexed, uncertain about the true meaning of the work, the message, so to speak.
· Like the dhows, Paul married simplicity with complexity … creating a desire to look beyond the mask, to uncover the mystery.
· His works are almost never about an identifiable person, or representative of anyone other than his own (unique) interests and reflections.
· They are in the true sense portraits of his own experiences of the world around him and his reflection on events/moods and actions he perceived.
This exhibition provides us with an unique opportunity to renew our perception and evaluation of how Paul’s sculptural practice, spanning a significant part of his career, evolved.
Let us look again and again, allowing the works to engage with us, change us, move us as they reveal themselves to us. Let us marvel in his unprecedented use of colour, material, shape and form, presented.
All of this in the beautiful setting of Tokara, where nature and art happily co-exist with good food/wine and architecture, calling on us to celebrate the life and work of an important and enigmatic artist, Paul du Toit.
