Mini retrospective for master print maker
MILPARK - Respected artist Norman Catherine has produced some of his most outstanding work in one or another form of print medium for more than 40 years.
A mini retrospective exhibition at Gallery AOP features many of these prints, and highlight’s Catherine’s mastery of techniques including linocut, silkscreen, etching, lithography and digital print.
“His versatility ranges from the early linocut self-portraits to the latest, highly sophisticated digital colour separations for his screen prints,” said gallery spokesperson Alet Vorster.
“These satirical images, often referencing imprisonment, death and trauma, but essentially depicting vulnerability, anger and insecurity, are the remains… of Catherine’s talismanic archive with which he fended off the physical and psychological onslaught that South Africans endured over the decades of apartheid, and the new challenges in the current political dispensation of a fledgling democracy,” said Vorster.
“However bleak the outlook, he seems to say in his work, life holds an absurdity that, in some measure, can alleviate even the darkest of situations.”
She added that the howling, serrated mouths so often featured in Catherine’s work, expressed as much outrage and suffering as they did defiance and revolt against injustice.
“The open mouths of [these] half-human, half-animal creatures perform the ‘politics of the belly’ – they mock authority and celebrate rampant individualism,” said Vorster.
“But they also portray Catherine’s alter ego, recognising themselves as monster-like opponents in a constant battle of wills with the self.”
The laughter that issues from these mouths is not aimed only at authority, but also at oneself; a form of menacing, black humour.
“Catherine’s laughter has become a way of life, a stoic form of self-deprecation, a totem-like mask that defies the world, a talisman to fend off evil,” she said.
Norman Catherine Print Editions 1968 – 2014 will run until 13 September at Gallery AOP, 44 Stanley Avenue, Braamfontein Werf, Milpark.
Details: 011 726 2234; www.galleryaop.com; [email protected]
