No strings attached. 

One can say that this exhibition is about relationships, or the lack thereof.  It evolved out of an intimate engagement with an infant.    

Right from the beginning we are attached.  We are attached to this world with an umbilical cord. Our first bond we form as humans are with our mothers.  All of us were infants at some stage and we all had mothers.  Every psyche has been affected by this fact.  To explore this fundamental of human existence has an irresistible fascination for me.    

I lost my mother at an early age, and since I became a mother I feel that loss intensely. I couldn’t ask her for advice so I turned to early pictures about the mother and child in search of understanding….and so this body of work (the pattern paper series of the mother and child) were born.  

“The relation to the mother is the most important in every person’s life; more than any other it conditions our early personality development, affecting to a large degree what our outlook on life and ourselves will be.  ” Bruno Bettelheim  

Through the ages the Madonna and child were depicted as being so serene.  It looks so easy as if the baby Jesus doesn’t suffer from nappy rash or teething problems.  Through these Madonnas I try to understand, at an elemental level, the meaning of motherhood and childhood. Could motherhood be so easy?  Even in fairy tales they all live happily ever after.   

This brings me to the altered books series….   We all are attached to knowledge (the written and spoken word) at some stage.  Stories, myths, legends, fairy tales feeds the soul; in fairytales the internal processes are translated into visual images.  I decided to alter these children books to feed my creativity.  

We are attached to family.  I don’t know the people in the altered photograph series, but got to know them quite well after working with their images.  Photographs remind me of invisible DNA.  

The bundles of joy series came from my attachment to toys/dolls.  I had to cut off all the hair on all my dolls in order to stop playing with them (this was very late in my life).  I still collect doll parts for art sake so I guess I never stopped playing.  Attached to all these doll parts are precious little sentimental things (eg. my mother in laws ballet shoes) animal horns etc, tide up with rope, string and wool to the “doll”. Like a mummy, protecting a secret from the other end of life. Through the process of swaddling or hiding these objects I hope to imply protection, growth and ingestion.   

 The list series is about the relationship to the self.   

 The saw blades obviously relates to letting go of attachment. 

 “My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery” Chesterson from the book Uses of enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim. 

 Hannalie Tauté

Words By Trent Read

Trent Read 

Recent work

Inheritance #1 (Grandchild) Description: Exhibition December 2009	Some kind of recipe Description: Exhibition December 2009
Sy story Description: Exhibition December 2009	(k)not a book. Description: Exhibition December 2009
Lord of the lies. Description: Exhibition December 2009	Inheritance #3 (grandmother) Description: Exhibition December 2009
Inheritance #2 (mother and child) Description: Exhibition December 2009	Inheritance #4 (family) Description: Exhibition December 2009
Eve Description: Exhibition December 2009	Bed-time story SOLD Description: Exhibition December 2009
Bundle of joy #1 Description: Exhibition December 2009	Bundle of joy #5 Description: Exhibition December 2009
Bundle of joy #2 SOLD Description: Exhibition December 2009	A Keepsake (cover) Description: Exhibition December 2009
A Keepsake (a peek inside/detail) Description: Exhibition December 2009	A Keepsake (a peek inside/detail) Description: Exhibition December 2009
Bundle of joy #3 Description: Exhibition December 2009	Bundle of joy #6 Description: Exhibition December 2009
Bundle of joy #4 Description: Exhibition December 2009	No strings attached #3 (you are what you eat) SOLD Description: Exhibition December 2009
No strings attached #1 (baggage) SOLD Description: Exhibition December 2009	No strings attached #4 (clumsy) Description: Exhibition December 2009
No strings attached #2 (see no evil) Description: Exhibition December 2009	Midwife Description: Exhibition December 2009
Mother without 'babe' SOLD Description: Exhibition December 2009	Dogma Description: Exhibition December 2009 SOLD
Mother and child (blue eyes) Description: Exhibition December 2009	Moeder en kind (vroue-monument) Description: Exhibition December 2009
3 new mixed media works SOLD	Medusa 330mm x 480mm Description: Mixed Media
Corset 330mm x 480mm Description: Mixed Media	Two-Faced 330mm x 480mm Description: Mixed Media

Hannalie Tauté Biography