AbstRacT – Synchrony Revealed

Timed Online Auction, 4 - 23 July 2025

AbstRacT – Synchrony Revealed
About the Session

In 2024, the Rupert Museum presented AbstRacT – The Hidden Synchrony, an exhibition inspired by Oscar Forel’s Synchromies series - close-up photographs of tree bark that transformed the familiar into bold abstraction. These works were paired with South African modernist paintings from the museum’s collection, creating surprising visual harmonies and fresh interpretations.

Building on this concept, AbstRacT – Synchrony Revealed is the result of the museum’s third Open Call, which received over 300 submissions. From these, 41 artists were selected to showcase their work in a group exhibition - now part of an exclusive online auction in collaboration with Strauss & Co.

The auction offers collectors a chance to discover new voices engaging with themes of ecology, memory, materiality, and abstraction. Each work reveals a dynamic interplay between natural form and artistic expression - where chance, structure, and symbolism collide.

During the period of the online auction the exhibition is accessible to be viewed at the Jan Rupert Art Centre, 41 Middle street, Graaff-Reinet.

Collection of the artworks will be available once the exhibition closes on 16 November 2025.

Please contact Eliz-Marie Schoonbee to arrange collection/delivery

tel: 021 888 3261

email: eliz-marie@rupertmuseum.org


Current Bid

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Lot 44
  • Monique Day-Wilde; Common Threads
  • Monique Day-Wilde; Common Threads


Lot Estimate
ZAR 20 000 - 30 000
Current Bid
Starting at ZAR 17 000
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About this Item

South African 1960-
Common Threads
2025
mixed media: tea bags, fabric, ink and thread
textile size: 128,5 by 256cm; installation size: 150 by 85cm

Notes

Day-Wilde was drawn to the large sculptural fragmented installation pieces by Karla Nixon and Strijdom van der Merwe featured in AbstRacT – the hidden synchrony, both by their colour and movement. She immediately saw how to interpret these works through her own process, especially drawing on the movement and 'intentional fragmentation of form' found in Nixon's work and Oscar Forel's Synchromies series. The shapes in Dirk Meerkotter's Rotstempel also resonated. It was mostly in this and in Forel's works that Day-Wilde found the inspiration for the colour palette of harmonious and natural colours; 'Nature, from the soil to the sky'.

Used teabags, each one part of a shared conversation, have been printed with black and tan ink using physical plant specimens. The artist has also leaned heavily on the inevitable abstract patterns and earth colours present from their use and subtly stitched some of them with the blues present in many of the works in the exhibition.

View all Monique Day-Wilde lots for sale in this auction