People should stand up for their beliefs, regardless of gender or age, she said.
Her work is incredible. Sculptures that feel animated. Paintings that are unapologetically loud. It sends shivers of pleasure down your spine when you are in the same room with her work.
Artist Magda van der Vloed’s power lies in storytelling that is at once sharp, satirical and beautiful to the point of sensory indulgence.
There is humour in her bronzes, grit in her portraits of women and a sense that nothing she creates is by accident.
Hyperbole is intentional because when art makes you feel, it’s done its job. All she needs is a medium. “I love the challenge of working with a variety of materials and always trying to do something unexpected and quirky,” she said.
Though she studied ceramics and worked with clay for more than 30 years, she doesn’t want to be boxed in by a single medium.
She said that her curiosity and fascination with art started a very long time ago in the small town of Jan Kempdorp in the Northern Cape. This is where she grew up.
“My father was a farmer and schoolteacher for mentally handicapped kids. He taught them various crafts and woodwork. My favourite place was his classroom and workspace. It smelled of wood, turpentine, oil, glue, rattan, smoke from the coal stove and paint. I spent many hours there, just absorbing and experimenting. It was such a happy place for me.”
Small town creativity
Today, she is based in Rosendal. It’s a small town too and around 45km from Ficksburg in the Free State, and there she works from a small studio inside what used to be Rosendal’s fire station.
Here, in her small eight square metre studio, Van der Vloed produces functional ceramics for shops in Rosendal while at the same time working on commissions, including, recently, a massive wall installation for a restaurant in Cape Town.
“It’s the same space where her paintings come to life and sculptures are born.
“I love the challenge of working with a variety of materials and always trying to do something unexpected and quirky,” she said.
Van der Vloed’s adventurous spirit spills into her work. She has backpacked through Europe, lived in Amsterdam, driven across America in a camper and crisscrossed Africa.
“Travelling opens your mind and lays the foundation for a mosaic of multicultural perceptions of the world,” she said.
The same willingness to explore informed her career designing products for artisans across the continent through organisations like Unesco and Aid to Artisans.
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Load shedding drove her to segue from ceramics, but not before she created a series of “vok Eskom” (fuck Eskom) plates to vent. There’s always a message.
“In my art, whether it’s ceramics, bronze or painting, I have a serious subject matter hidden under a quirky exterior,” Van der Vloed said.
“Whether it’s child molestation, our corrupt and inapt government, social media addiction, letting go of personal grievances, human trafficking and many more.
“I am a fighter for women’s and children’s rights and feel very strongly that women should stand up for themselves. I am portraying women with grit as survivors, women accepting and slaying difficult situations and challenges,” she said.
Activism in art
People should stand up for their beliefs, regardless of gender or age, she said.
“Life is short and precious. If a situation costs us our dignity, happiness, sanity or peace, walk away from it. Dig a trench out of it, one spade at a time, until there’s a path and way out of that situation. Then walk the walk, do not turn back.”
She cited her “Nancy Show” as a good example of creative protest. Nancy is a cartoon character that she remembered from her childhood.
“She’s been around forever and she’s so witty, cute and naughty. I love her and use her character to make six sculptures, each symbolising a deep and meaningful subject.
“When all of them are done in bronze, I’m visualising them as a TV show, all marching and appearing on stage, revealing their (gasp) ‘true’ meaning in a kind of ‘Oprah’ moment!”
The Nancy Show, as it rolls out, is presently on exhibit at ArtEye Gallery in Dainfern. So too are some of her paintings.
There’s also a common denominator across several works. It is a red-haired woman.
“It’s a self-portrait of me when I was about 21 years old,” she said.
“The red hair is flames and the title: ‘in borrowed time’, is me looking back at a much younger self with a kind of admiration and realising what a long way I’ve come.
“Through fire and deep waters, I’ve made it with the grace of God, but also realising that I’m on borrowed time and still want to do so much with the days left for me on earth.”
