Goodman Gallery is pleased to present Jeremy Wafer’s solo exhibition; Arc. The exhibition coalesces new and existing works that reflect on boundaries, barriers and enclosures, continuing the artist’s exploration of these concepts throughout his nearly four-decade-long career.
The exhibition takes its title from a central work by the same name, pointing to the arc as an outer perimeter of a curve that is simultaneously closed and open — at once concave and convex depending on the position of the viewer. Through its almost circular shape, the arc is both protective and unconstrained.
Through sculptures and a site-specific installation, Wafer brings together threads that contemplate the social and historical landscape of South Africa. For the artist, barriers do not only speak to borders — which can be read as physical mechanisms — but also allude to edges that have the potential to tolerate as well as to resist containment, classification and sheltering. Through the thematic of enclosure, indicated by straight and curved lines in sculptural forms, Wafer considers his personal geography within a broader context of possession, dispossession, security, vulnerability, removal and loss.
Artworks
About
Jeremy Wafer
Jeremy Wafer (b. 1953, Durban, South Africa) grew up in Nkwalini in what was then Zululand. He studied Fine Art at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg (B.A.F.A.1979) and at the University of the Witwatersrand (B.A. Hons. in Art History 1980, M.A. Fine Art 1987 and PhD 2016).
Wafer taught in the Fine Art Departments of the former Technikon Natal (now DUT) and Technikon Witwatersrand (now UJ) before being appointed Professor of Fine Art in the Wits School of Arts of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He retired from full time teaching in 2019.
Wafer is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies, notably the Standard Bank National Drawing Prize in 1987 and the Sasol Wax Art Award in 2006. His work featured on the South African Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. Wafer has exhibited in South Africa and internationally, his work is represented in the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC, the South African National Gallery, the Johannesburg Art Gallery as well as in many other museum, private and corporate collections.
Wafer lives and works between London UK and Johannesburg, South Africa.
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