GALLERY: Local artist exhibits
Come and view Severa’s artwork, publications and jewellery which will be exhibited and sold at her exhibition, TIMESPAN, at The Alliance Francaise (Gallery Gerard Sekoto), 17 Lower Park Drive, corner Kerry Road, Parkview, Johannesburg, from Wednesday, June 6 (opening night at 6pm) until Saturday, June 9.
TALENTED and inspirational Severa Rech Cassarino, who lives in Linmeyer, will be having her own art exhibition on Wednesday evening at Alliance Francaise in Parkview, where she will exhibit 70 pieces of her work, including art, jewellery and books.
Severa’s paintings are full of colour and expression with a contemporary edge, and she has certainly carved a niche for herself in the art world.
Her home is full of love and vibrancy, filled with art and an unmistakable aura of a woman who knows her worth.
Originally from Northern Italy, Severa came to South Africa as a child and grew up for the most part in the South of Johannesburg.
Even as a child aged four, she drew with her father’s carpenter’s pencil and as she grew to be a teenager and young woman her passion for painting continued.
Severa has won many awards and achievements including being a recipient of an international award for art and culture, a finalist in the Art Now Vita Awards, she is also the author of four glossy art publications in collaboration with Dictum Publishers (Pty) Ltd. These carry forward by government ministers and Madame Zanele Mbeki, wife of Mr Thabo Mbeki. Flight to Freedom is graced with a foreword by Nelson Mandela. These coffee-table collectors’ art books are the culmination of art projects involving children and teacher training.
A great honour was when she was chosen by the Italian Ministry of Culture for the 2011 Venice Biennale.
Currently she is creating a collection of art jewellery, which she describes as ‘small design adventures’. Her necklaces and bracelets are a consolidation of unique beads sourced globally from Venice to South East Asia to West Africa. She is also continuing her lifelong passion for writing.
Severa’s work is widely collected both locally and abroad, by individuals, institutions and corporate entities and she uses oil, watercolour, pencil, mixed media and acrylic.
“My early work was characterised by dark glowing oils using animal imagery as a metaphor. In watercolour, I moved from classically ‘loose’ washes towards a detailed, translucent intensity and my large canvasses veer from dramatic single images in an expressive gestural mark to interludes of selective realism.”
A lover of all things beautiful she oozes a confidence of a fine artist who is wise and embraces the notion that, “It’s okay to not create, but it’s actually imperative to jump on that creative fairground ride with impunity when the call comes or ignore it at your own peril. And so, here I am, at the height of my powers, if I am to believe the Mystics, the Old Wives and even the Witches, still at it after all this time …”
Come and view Severa’s artwork, publications and jewellery which will be exhibited and sold at her exhibition, TIMESPAN, at The Alliance Francaise (Gallery Gerard Sekoto), 17 Lower Park Drive, corner Kerry Road, Parkview, Johannesburg, from Wednesday, June 6 (opening night at 6pm) until Saturday, June 9.
Read:
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New book launched in the South
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