Mourning loss through art
By CityLife Arts Writer
Visual artist Gwenneth Miller will have an exhibition at the Association of Arts Pretoria, beginning on September 3 running until September 19.
This exhibition, Enfolding, is a visual echo of Gwen Miller mourning the loss of her husband Stefan. Here she dwells on sites and entities enveloped in memory, both traumatic and comforting, turning remembrances into tangible forms. Her creative process resembles her memory process.
Featuring drawings, prints and paintings, this exhibition essentially contains two separate themes worked on simultaneously. Each is tied to the central concept of awareness as enfolded in layers. One deals with the twin experiences of melancholy and the sublime caused by reflecting on familiar places and mundane objects – a dam, a rock, a hospital bed. These transcend their ordinariness through association.
Imagery from the second, titled Forest for my love, originates from the physical site of a park where Gwen and her family and friends planted trees in memory of their individual closeness with Stefan. The artworks on exhibition reflect on healing rituals and embrace life’s overwhelming ambiguities – the quiet value of care given in hope, the sense of desolation when faced with the reality of mortality, and the meditations on an unimaginable future.
The exhibition can be viewed from 3 to 19 September 2020 with an open day and an opportunity to meet Gwen on Saturday 5 September from 10h00 to 13h00.
Association of Arts Pretoria is at
173 Mackie Street
Nieuw Muckleneuk