The National Arts Festival in Makhanda (Grahamstown) celebrates its golden jubilee in June, and two sculptors from the Sarah Baartman District Municipality will participate, Susan Kemp from Storms River Village, and Marlene Liebenberg from Paradise Beach in Jeffreys Bay.
A selection of their works will form part of the Eastern Cape Showcase Exhibition of visual arts, in the foyer of the Albany Museum during the festival period from June 20 to 30.
At least 32 artists from all over the province are participating.
Kemp and Liebenberg started their adventure as sculptors together about 10 years ago, when Liebenberg lived in Tsitsikamma, near Storms River Village.
They experimented together with wild clay and primitive firing methods.
They dug up their first clay in Liebenberg’s back yard. Both are represented by Art-for-All Gallery in Storms River Village.
When Liebenberg moved to Paradise Beach in Jeffreys Bay about five years ago, she started working with polyester resin composites. Her process entails sculpting in plasticine clay, from which a silicone mould is made for casting of the finished sculpture in polyester resin.
Kemp makes her sculptures with local clay and fires them using primitive firing methods. She manually processes the clay, obtained in its natural state, and fires her work in an open fire or with sawdust in a steel barrel.
The Showcase Exhibition started as a capacity-building intervention by the Eastern Cape Department of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture, to create opportunities for Eastern Cape artists after the pandemic, to help them recover from the severe impact of the extended lockdown and survive in the continuing challenging times.
It is curated by the sub-directorate of Visual Arts and Crafts.
