Artist invites audiences to play with honey at David Krut Projects
Oupa Sibeko’s Bench Play transforms art into play, inviting audiences to create, explore, and interact using honey as a tactile, unforgettable medium.
When visitors stepped into David Krut Projects on October 4, they were met, not just with works of art, but with an invitation to play.
Artist Oupa Sibeko’s new solo project, Bench Play, transformed the gallery into a space where observation, bodily presence, and creativity intertwined in unexpected ways.
The exhibition presents a dynamic series of works on paper, created in collaboration with Jesse Shepstone at the David Krut Workshop.
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These pieces, produced through performative and improvisational methods, reflect an exploratory process deeply rooted in material curiosity and the physicality of making. Yet it was during the opening that Bench Play truly came alive.
Sibeko initiated a participatory performance, Honey the Bench, turning the gallery into an interactive stage.
Handing out sheets of paper matching the size of his monotype postcard series, he anointed his face and torso with honey, declaring: “Honey is play.”
The sweet, sticky substance became both medium and metaphor, inviting guests to explore texture, touch, and process.
Audiences eagerly joined in, dipping fingers into honey to create their own drawings. Over successive rounds, the collaborative works thickened with layered gestures, culminating in a reflective moment where each participant considered whether their piece was complete.
The resulting ‘honey drawings’ contrasted with Sibeko’s meticulous watercolour monotypes, raw and ephemeral, yet intimately connected in format and intent.
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By incorporating the audience directly into the act of creation, Bench Play dissolves conventional boundaries between artist and viewer.
The bench itself becomes a stage for dialogue, exchange, and experimentation, turning a familiar object into a symbol of play and shared experience.
Sibeko’s use of honey not only transformed the materiality of the drawings; it sparked conversations about its potential in printmaking and etching, underscoring the exhibition’s playful, experimental spirit.
In Bench Play, art is not simply observed, it is lived, felt, and made, together.
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