PRESS RELEASE
DENBY MEYER: Observations
Mar 9 – Apr 2, 2017
Everard Read Cape Town is delighted to present Observations, a collection of new works by Denby Meyer.
As the title suggests, this exhibition represents a way of looking at or observing places and people within those environments. The perspective has shifted a little in some of the paintings to more of a bird's eye view, a slightly more removed observation. The paintings are of different places – from Africa to parts of Europe - but at the same time some of them could be anywhere. This is a collection that has evolved from my impressions and perceptions of the various places I have recently visited.
- Denby Meyer
Observations is Denby Meyer’s first solo outing in Cape Town in almost a decade. The works are somehow weightier, more assured as she re-asserts her position as a travel painter. These are both anecdotal and universal, presenting her view as a fait accompli; asserting what has been seen and an invitation to see for ourselves, to experience what has been seen by another. Meyer is a faithful recorder of moments that she presents to us from her travels, but somehow these are not Facebook moments showing off where she has been, but the records of a seeker who hopes to distil mankind in their environment . Every inhabitant is lovingly transcribed as a marker; as talisman of what it is to be alive in this world, of the strangeness and ordinariness of hanging out on the beach or walking through the veld, of being. Meyer makes no judgment on the acts of her protagonists, but rather merely captures moments that strike her, moments that frame themselves as deserving of painting in order to celebrate and notice the human condition. As such, she bravely presents a patently intimate view of her world and reveals insights into her soul that invite contemplation and introspection, which in the glare of the paparazzi is distinctly refreshing.
The exhibition opens at Everard Read Cape Town gallery on 9 March 2017 and concludes on 2 April 2017.
A portfolio is available upon request.
