As part of Women’s Month festivities, Kalk Bay’s Artvark Gallery is celebrating its 25th anniversary with an exhibition of works by members of The Printing Girls (TPG) collective.
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Titled ‘25 Years 25 Prints’ the exhibition, which opened last week, not only pays tribute to the remarkable achievements of women printmakers but also marks the inauguration of the gallery’s eagerly awaited new exhibition space.
TPG is an all-female collective of South African-based artists who work in print. In 2009, the six founders of TPG graduated in the Arts from Rhodes University, which has always had a strong history of printmaking.
During a class reunion, in 2016 they inspired each other to create in print again and began to exhibit as The Printing Girls.
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The TPG community now boasts a strong and growing membership of 93 artists.
Owner of Artvark, Theresa Jo Wessels, is herself an artist, printmaker and member of TPG. Her works ‘Leaving’ and ‘Leaving I’ are part of the exhibition.
‘We have been wanting to host a printmaking exhibition for some time and the collaboration with TPG allowed us to fully realise that idea in an expression that paid tribute to both women as artists and printmaking as an often understated, incredibly diverse and somewhat mysterious art form,’ she explained
‘August is Women’s Month, so we thought it a perfect time to launch the exhibition on the evening of Women’s Day as it features 25 curated prints from the all-women printmaking collective.’
Meanwhile, senior printmaking technician at UCT’s Michaelis School of Fine Arts, Madelize van der Merwe, whose work ‘Blossom’ is part of the exhibition, believes that women have a bright future with this art form, adding that the tides seem to be turning on what has traditionally been a male-dominated industry.
‘In the four years I have been working with printmakers at Michaelis, I have experienced more female students interested in the technique.’
‘Looking at the quality of work on display at the Artvark Gallery, I feel truly blessed to be part of TPG and to be exhibited among some of the most renowned women in the industry.’
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Pictures: Supplied