BRONWYN LACE
(b.1980, Francistown, Botswana)

An essential component of my practice involves creating site-specific installations with found, recycled and repurposed elements. The pieces are built in situ, responding to the context of the site with repetitive weaving, tying and threading, line by line, between surfaces. This time-based and repetitive process helps me to immerse myself physically within a context so that I may respond to all its elements specifically.

I’m particularly interested in how artworks as spaces relate to the proportions of the human body. I’m interested in creating artworks that employ beauty as an initial tool to create immersive bodily experiences. I believe that when we are fully absorbed by an artwork we have the capacity to relate to and learn from it in a more complete way.

I have long been a collector of things. From found dead insects to broken stained glass to obsolete encyclopaedia. I keep these objects with me until the right time to process them presents itself. I then look to existing, often traditional crafting methods, from weaving, beading and embroidery to folding origami. I believe that the repetitive act of making allows for a meditation with the material, the space and finally the artwork.

The manner in which I choose to respond has to be informed by all aspects of the site. This takes in to account everything from the way in which natural and artificial light shifts the space to who occupies the space over the course of a day. I view all elements as collaborators in the making of an artwork. 

Lace, who was born in Francistown, Botswana, in 1980, works primarily in site specific installation, sculpture and performance and participates in national and international projects focusing on the relationships between art and other fields, including Physics, museum practice and education. An important element of Lace’s practice involves creating site-specific installations with found, recycled and repurposed elements. The pieces are built in situ, often with intricate threading and weaving. Light is a central component to all of Lace’s work. Through this process-driven practice, she creates architectural three-dimensional and often-interactive artworks, containing material from the world around us such as swarms of fishing flies, rearranged animal skeletons or thousands of shards of shattered stained glass.

In collaboration with Marcus Neustetter, Lace has initiated various community and land art projects in small towns within South Africa. From 2006-2010, she ran the About Art education and exhibition programme at The Bag Factory Artists' Studios. She currently sits on the board of the David and Goliath Foundation and is an assistant to the curator of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) art collection. In addition, Lace has recently completed a book and film related to her collaborative project 'Sutherland Reflections' with Africa meets Africa, an organisation that produces illustrated educator’s resource books, films and classroom learning materials. In 2009 and 2010 she was listed in the Mail and Guardian as one of the top 200 Young South Africans. Lace completed a BAFA in 2004 from the University of Witwatersrand.

EDUCATION

2004     
Bachelor of Arts Fine Arts, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg