Images on display
BRYANSTON – Artist hosts his fourth solo exhibition at the Graham Modern and Company.
Art lovers, artists and collectors gathered for the launch of Images by Jan Neethling which delivered on artistic expression.
The Johannesburg-based artist turned heads with his collection at the Graham Modern and Contemporary on the evening, 20 June as he gave a new meaning to the words conventional art. Each piece had quite an interesting name to it and the aesthetes enjoyed it all.
As the name suggests, the Images collection can be read as a series of snapshots of daily life, with surprisingly animated human figures dominating the canvasses. Neethling is an accomplished painter of life on the move, and even his occasional still life or landscape seem as much concerned with the human presence, or lack thereof, as they are with the subject matter – be it a table leg, objects in a room, trees or the lie of the land.
Born in London in 1938, Neethling studied at the School of Art at the Pretoria Technical College between 1958 and 1960. During this period, he formed his lifelong friendship with teacher and mentor, Robert Hodgins. He painted prolifically and exhibited as early as the 1970s, but almost always in collaboration with Hodgins, who went on to become one of South Africa’s most highly sought-after artists. Neethling’s introverted personality and self-effacing modesty meant that he remained relatively unknown outside of Johannesburg, where a small but devoted fan base was steadily developing.
Though art has been his life since his early school days, Neethling’s first solo exhibition was only in 2008, when he was 70 years old. “Though his collaborations with the late Robert Hodgins was obviously instrumental in getting him to the exciting stage at which his art sits right now, there are many in the industry, myself included, that believe this wave of demand for his work is long overdue,” said Graham Britz, owner of Graham Modern and Contemporary.
Neethling’s fourth solo exhibition, Images, is his first since his collection entitled A Greek Goddess Up to No Good opened to critical acclaim at Erdmann Contemporary in Cape Town in 2013.
Having grown up in a diplomatic family for which travel was a fact of life, Neethling grew fascinated by new cultures, new lands and new people from an early age, an influence the sites as the root of his first desires to draw and paint. His high school and arts college education encouraged the figurative element of his work and instilled in him a unique mastery of materials and techniques.
Specialist teachers taught him to work in different media as well as to develop rigorous standards of skill before evolving a personal style. He acquired skills not only in painting, sculpture and drawing but also in graphic processes including silkscreen, at the time very much a new way of working.
Admirers and collectors of contemporary South African art are invited to view and collect the artist’s latest offering at Graham Modern and Contemporary in Bryanston until 16 July.
For more information, follow @GrahamModernandContemporary on Instagram and Facebook or visit www.grahamsgallery.co.za
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