Notes

“He’s a pretty child with calm eyes, a snub nose and a full mouth. It’s a face that you get to know and love because, even as this child is watching the world, you’re watching him grow. From scene to scene, you see the curve of his jaw change, notice his thickening brows and witness his slender arms opening to embrace the world and its clear and darkening skies”. ¹

In 2007, Kate Gottgens exhibited a suite of untitled paintings made from paint and ash under the title Little Deaths. Curated by dealer Trent Read, the exhibition explored the theme of bereavement. Although informed by the death of the artist’s mother, the paintings visually explored another instance of mourning: the artist’s son was on the brink of puberty, signaling separation, shifts in identity and loss. An accomplished figurative painter, Gottgens portrayed adolescent boys, either in groups at play or alone, some seated and others prone. The identities of the boys were unspecific, although mostly they were Caucasian. “Smudged contours dematerialize the anatomies and lend the boys a ghostly presence, identifying them as figments, phantoms or memories shuttling through consciousness,” appreciatively noted critic Lloyd Pollock.² Tonally muted and compositionally fractured, with blockish elements of landscape intruding, the paintings were informed by the work of Portuguese artist Julião Sarmento whose biographical work denies easy narration and incorporates discrete configurations within his frame. Positioned next to an ominous void, the seated figure in this lot also appears in another smaller work from the series.

1. Manohla Dargis, ‘Movie Review: Linklater’s “Boyhood” Is a Model of Cinematic Realism’. New York Times, 10 July 2014. Marelize van Zyl (ed) (2015) Kate Gottgens: Paintings 2007 - 2015, Stellenbosch: SMAC Art Publishing. Page 139.

2. Lloyd Pollock, ‘Kate Gottgens’, www.artthrob.co.za, Issue No. 116, April 2007

Exhibited

Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town, Little Deaths, 2007.

Literature

Marelize van Zyl. (ed.) (2015) Kate Gottgens: Paintings 2007 - 2015, Stellenbosch: SMAC Art Publishing. Illustrated in colour on page 139.

Kate Gottgens, Little Deaths (with foreword by Hazel Friedman), Cape Town: Scan Art, 2007