rosenclaire / Colour Theory / 2014
Goodman Gallery Cape Town is pleased to present, for our first show of 2014, an exhibition of new works by rosenclaire titled Colour Theory. The exhibition will feature a characteristic mix of collaborative and individual works by Claire Gavronsky and Rose Shakinovsky, presented in conversation.
The exhibition takes its title from a desire on the part of the artists to open up a discursive space between theoretical engagement and visceral response, between contemplation and surprise. Colour Theory can be understood in a social and political context, referring to racial categorisation and discrimination, as well as the ways in which we have been trained to “read” colour culturally. But colour, and our relationship with it, also exists in a place outside of these linguistic and cultural constructs. As the artists write: “Colour… has a voice and impact of its own, directly on the senses and emotions. It resonates in the silence when language reaches its limits, when words fail in the face of overwhelming joy, great suffering and pure aesthetic pleasure”.
Shakinovsky and Gavronsky work together and separately, but their artistic practice is symbiotic – the work, whether solo or collaborative, comes out of individual responses to the same stimuli, individual answers to the same questions. Often emerging from a pictorial dialogue, the content – or the question – dictates the shape and medium of the work, which ranges from unapologetically humble ready-made images to site specific installations. The ambivalent authorship of the works resulting from this dialogue – and their conversation, in turn, with the canon of art history – acts as a challenge to the notion of uniqueness and identifiable style as a signifier of artistic integrity.
Artworks
About
rosenclaire
Born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Live and work in Florence, Italy
Claire Gavronsky (b. 1957, Johannesburg) works in a variety of mediums, most notably in painting and sculpture. Her work often uses visual references to historical paintings, and cues are sometimes taken from events from everyday life. Memory, racism, violence against women and children are some of the themes which run through her oeuvre.
Notable solo and group exhibitions include: Mirror of the Mind: Figuration in the Jorge M. Pérez Collection, El Espacio 23, Miami ( 2024) ; Viewing Room exhibitions, Goodman Gallery, London, (2024), Io e Me. Autoritratti nel Lockdown. Sala 1, Centro Internazionale d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome (2021); Speechless with Rose Shakinovsky, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town (2018); Right to the Future, Museum of 20th and 21st Century Art, St Petersburg (2017); Colour Theory with Rose Shakinovsky, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town (2014); Dakar Biennale, Dakar (2010); and Dystopia, collaboration with William Kentridge, Pretoria, Johannesburg, Ghent (2009-2010).
Rose Shakinovsky’s (b. 1953, Johannesburg) work defies any stylistic category as it consists of work that ranges from the re-presentation and decontextualization of found objects, found images and found situations, to delicately painted abstractions and ironic bronzes. The work concerns itself with current political and social discourses while simultaneously referencing and reconstructing art historical edifices. Her present research is concerned with discourses pertaining to the posthuman, transhuman and the consequences of climate change.
Notable solo and group exhibitions include: Mirror of the Mind: Figuration in the Jorge M. Pérez Collection, El Espacio 23, Miami ( 2024) ; Viewing Room exhibitions, Goodman Gallery, London, (2024); Io e Me. Autoritratti nel Lockdown. Sala 1, Centro Internazionale d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome (2021); Speechless with Claire Gavronsky, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town (2018); Right to the Future, Museum of 20th and 21st Century Art, St Petersburg (2017); COLORI: L’emozione dei COLORI nell’arte, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli (2017); Assessing Abstraction, South African National Gallery (2017); Colour Theory with Rose Shakinovsky, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town (2014); Dakar Biennale, Dakar (2010).
Shakinovsky collaborates with Gavronsky as the artist “rosenclaire”, as dedicated mentors who have run a renowned artists residency program in Tuscany for the past 30 years.
Collections:
FAMM – Female Artists of the Mougins Museum, France
Claire Gavronsky
(b. 1957, Johannesburg)
Claire Gavronsky works in a variety of mediums, most notably in painting and sculpture. Her work often uses visual reference’s to historical paintings, and cues are sometimes taken from events from everyday life. Memory, racism, violence against women and children are some of the theme’s which run through her oeuvre. Her work also bridge’s sometimes complex narratives through overlaid images, and stories which link the past to the present.
In 1981 Gavronsky received a Master of Fine Art in painting, and she moved to Italy in 1985 and has since lived between Cape Town and Tuscany.
In Florence, Gavronsky established, with fellow artist Rosemarie Shakinovsky, an international artist’s residency workshop in Tuscany. After the success of these workshops they founded workshops in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Venda and Botswana. Gavronsky and Shakinovsky often collaborate under the name Rosenclaire. They also collaborate on occasion with William Kentridge. She has exhibited extensively in South Africa, Europe and the United States of America.
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Rose Shakinovsky
Born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1953. Lives and works in Florence, Italy
Rose Shakinovsky’s work defies any stylistic category as it consists of work that ranges from the re-presentation and decontextualization of found objects, found images and found situations, to delicately painted abstractions and ironic bronzes. The work concerns itself with current political and social discourses while simultaneously referencing and reconstructing art historical edifices. Shakinovsky is interested in the structure as well as the morphology of all seemingly coherent visual and nonvisual languages from the prelinguistic to the post-linquistic and the digital. Her present research is concerned with discourses pertaining to the Posthuman, Postanthropos, Transhuman, Migration and the consequences of Climate Change.
Rose Shakinovsky and Claire Gavronsky collaborate as the artist “rosenclaire”, as wives and as dedicated mentors who have run a renowned artists residency program in Tuscany for the past 30 years.
Shakinovsky has over the past decade given contemporary art history courses to collectors, philanthropists and business leaders hoping to inspire them to contribute to fostering the arts in their respective countries.
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