BEV MICHEL FINE ARTS
EXHIBITIONS
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE FLOOR
EXHIBITIONS
1986 – Gertrude Posal Gallery
1995 – Decorex
1995 – Jerusalem 3000
1996 – Decorex Art Gallery
1996 – Collectors Fair
1997 – Antique Dealers Fair
1997 – Solo Exhibition Magnus Heystek
2011 – Solo Exhibition Art OneSixty
2019 – Solo Exhibition mmArthouse
Many of the artists current works can be viewed at the Houghton Hotel in Johannesburg
Highlights from the Floor
LAYERS AND ALL THEY ENTAIL
I have been inspired by the concept of palimpsest in which something that has been reworked continues to bear the visible traces of its earlier form.
I have always been fascinated by the notion of an artwork that holds within itself its own history and previous incarnations: the past folding itself into the present.
My last exhibition was titled The layers that lie beneath. I took already completed large textured oil paintings and painted new works, using glazes, over those paintings.
I found that the underlying colour and texture sometimes remained intact or peeped through the new layers. The palimpsests manifested themselves therefore in varied and unpredictable forms, even to me. It was extraordinarily gratifying to find myself surprised by the processes of my own creativity.
This seemed to me to be analogous to the ways in which memories and past experiences manifest themselves in the present.
The past is not simply past: it permeates the present and may even shape it. Sometimes this takes the form of enrichment: the past a vast resource of knowledge and experience; the new artwork so much more than merely its present configuration.
Just as a newborn child receives the genetic inheritance of the parents, so the artwork created in this way is not simply a newborn creation but is the heir of the processes from which it is derived.
However, the relationship between the past and the present can also be less positive: sometimes we are held back by trauma, phobias or painful memories.
Recent research has shown that these may even cross generations, where, for instance, the descendants of victims of the Holocaust exhibit traces of trauma even though they were not directly exposed to it.
I was motivated also by artistic influences and their power. Artists do not work in a vacuum: they tend to draw on the creations of those who came before them, finding inspiration in their achievements and learning from their technical expertise.
It is not always possible to delineate direct lines of influence; but would Picasso’s cubism, for instance, have existed in the form in which we know it were it not for Cezanne and his concept of simultaneity?
My palimpsestic works were for me a way of acknowledging how the past can also function as a source of artistic inspiration.