BLOEMFONTIEN – The exhibition showcasing a body of work spanning a decade currently ongoing at the Oliewenhuis Art Museum Annex Gallery in Bloemfontein is reaching its final days. The Co-Incidence of Circumstances will officially close on 8 February, having opened in November last year.
This is a solo exhibition by Wessel van Huyssteen. His current practice encompasses detailed watercolour studies alongside large-scale visually impactful stitched textile works.
These labour-intensive “stitchings,” as Van Huyssteen prefers to call them, created from industrial fabrics like viscose and nylon, serve as material critiques of fast fashion’s ecological impact and global supply chains. The talented artist’s focus on manual craftsmanship highlights the value of physical process in an increasingly automated world.
Van Huyssteen is interested in concepts of place and how to engage with the representation of landscape in the age of the Leviathocene – the current era, defined by the dominant, destructive power of states, corporations and artificial intelligence (AI).
This exhibition brings together a body of work produced in the past ten years. While each work stands alone and is inspired by specific circumstances, they are all intertwined within a larger narrative.
Van Huyssteen works in a multitude of media, allowing their materiality to steer his practice. Currently, he produces intimate and highly detailed watercolour paintings and collages, as well as abstract fields of large densely stitched textiles. Most of the works on exhibition consist of his “stitchings”.
These consist of fabric layers that are cut and sewn and re-sewn to excavate and construct disrupted and deliberately unpredictable geographies.
In addition to materiality, work, time and craft are all essential elements to unpack his practice, which is impossible to duplicate by AI or robots, as the manual dexterity needed to execute these “stitchings” most possibly lies years beyond the reach of the most sophisticated of artificial minds.
About the artist
Van Huyssteen lives in the hamlet of Rosendal in the Free State, where he co-owns the Ark Contemporary gallery.
He has been active as an artist, arts educator, curator, and filmmaker since 1986. He holds a Master of Arts in Fine Arts with distinction from Wits University. He has been nominated for, and won, several local and international documentary film awards. The Co-Incidence of Circumstances is his fifth solo exhibition. His works are in several public and private collections.
