Natalie Moore’s Sandman on at ABSA Gallery

Absa L’Atelier winner, Natalie Moore invites you to find your lost feelings as you lose yourself in her fairytale-like Sandman solo exhibition at the Absa Gallery this August.

Moore, a photographer and mixed media artist, won the Gerard Sekoto Award in the 2015 Absa L’Atelier art competition for her photographic triptych Once Upon A Time Jozi, which explored the universal fairytale in the Johannesburg context. Her prize was partly sponsored by Alliance Francaise and the French Institute in South Africa and included a three-month residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris.

“The Absa L’Atelier art competition aims to unearth the freshest, most creative emerging artists,” said Dr Paul Bayliss, Absa Art and Museum curator.

“Natalie and her Sandman exhibition are proof of that. It’s very encouraging to see these young artists using the opportunities that are available to them. We are delighted to host such a dynamic young female artist at the gallery, especially during Women’s Month when the spotlight is on successful South African women.”

With Sandman, Moore explores the classic fairytale through the lens of a dreamscape. The exhibition is a narrative akin to one’s dreams, where the storyline may seem fragmented and unstructured to the conscious mind, but natural to the fabric of a dream and the subconscious.

“In this age, we are so dictated by linear time: never having enough of it, always been pressed for it, often working over it, being charged by it and being paid for it [and not productivity alone],” said Moore. “As a society, we are the hamsters in the wheel, yet we never take the time to step back and look at the wheel itself.”

Sandman is Moore’s first solo exhibition and it runs at the Absa Gallery in downtown Johannesburg from 13 August until 1 September.

Moore will do a walkabout at the gallery and interact with visitors on 18 and 25 August from 1pm to 3pm.

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