Every first Thursday of the month, Cape Town’s vibrant residents pack the streets, restaurants and galleries of the city centre for an evening of artistic appreciation and end-of-week revelry while increasing access to the arts and bringing life back into our urban spaces after hours.
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Here are some of the galleries that will be open this Thursday, as well as the artists who will be exhibiting there. The full list of galleries exhibiting this month can be found here.
Goodman Gallery: Misheck Masamvu “Safety Pin”
Misheck Masamvu’s exhibition “Safety Pin” features fresh paintings and a sculpture installation. The artist creates wild landscapes that represent the vulnerability that is at the core of his practice by fusing vibrant colour with a distinctive expressionist style.
- Location: 37A Somerset Road, De Waterkant
- Hours: 5.30pm – 8 pm
- Gallery website: goodman-gallery.com
99 Loop Gallery: “Rock, Boulder, Solid” by Chris Denovan and “Feed” by Alexis Schofield
As Chris Denovan creates narrative scenes, large areas of gentle gradients serve as the foundation for delicate “sweat-like” dots that shimmer on large limbs and skinny dashes of paint that float idly in the air. His juxtaposition of objects and forms results in a harmonious energy that alternates between heaviness and lightness. This not only adds depth and meaning to Donovan’s scenes but also gives the impression that we are witnessing a significant event or a brief period of time filled with thoughtful and quiet reflections.
“Feed” by Alexis Schofield is a collection of smaller portrait-oriented canvases that progresses into the realm of sequential imagery.
- Location: 99 Loop Street | Corner of Loop and Church street
- Hours: Closes at 8pm
- Gallery website: 99loop.co.za
EBONY/CURATED: “TOTEM” by Zemba Luzamba
Zemba Luzamba, a Congolese painter born in 1973, moved to South Africa to pursue his artistic career and is currently exhibiting in “When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting” at the Zeitz MOCAA.
“More playful than his highly politicised works, this new body of work lends itself to the spiritual with a deceptively childlike visual language that challenges the viewer to consider the complexity of identity,” says Khanyisile Mawhayi
- Location: 67 Loop Street, City Bowl, Cape Town
- Hours: 6pm – 8pm
- Gallery website: ebonycurated.com
THK Gallery: “Things Done While Dreaming” by Dominique Cheminais
With scenes and characters from the artist’s numerous publications, this new series of paintings brings the writer’s writings to life. Her paintings and text are intertwined in a continuously creative act as she began as a painter, transitioned to writing, and is now back to painting.
- Location: 52 Waterkant Street, Cape Town CBD
- Hours: 10am – 8pm
- Gallery website: thkgallery.com
Union House: “Cunning Stunts” by Frank van Reenen
“Cunning Stunts” is a selection of sculptures and paintings by artist Frank van Reenen which, along with his other series of works, has been informed by gentle satire, human fallibility, nostalgia and cartoon culture.
- Location: Union House | 25 Commercial Street, East City
- Hours: 5pm – 8pm
- Gallery website: spierartstrust.co.za
Eclectica Contemporary: “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Nedia Were
Nedia Were is “exploring the boundaries that feelings can cross or reach, and it is beyond our imagination as to what it can do to our society.” Deep human connection and love, in other words, are subjunctive – a promise that cannot be anticipated or justified in advance.
- Location: 56 Church Street, Cape Town CBD
- Hours: 5pm – 8.30pm
- Gallery website: eclecticacontemporary.co.za
Find the full list of galleries exhibiting this month here.
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Picture: First Thursdays Cape Town / Facebook