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Gregory Kerr
Aides Memoires
The title, Aides Memoires, refers to the fact that small format drawing is often used as a sketch for a larger, more ‘significant’ work to follow. In my case, the pastels not only generate their own, unique completion, but also serve to supply (as opposed to record) memory. Much of the imagery arises from accidents, oddities, quirks on the plates and the grounds I develop prior to working the final image. In this sense the pastels often achieve a completion and integrity that are sometimes very hard-won in the oils.
I am primarily an oil painter, but since my student days I have been enchanted by the directness, luminosity and painterly characteristics of pastel used with bravura. I knew that Edgar Degas had used monotype as a means for creating rich and sometimes idiosyncratic textured and tonal grounds for his famous works. After experimenting with a small universal press in 2000, in 2001 I acquired an etching press and started to use this relatively formal and technical process in the development of more dedicated work in the medium. I tend to balance oil painting, drawing and pastel work in equal measures in my studio practice.
In the present series, the interest is primarily on the possibilities for colour and characterization that arise from the various subjects. I have enjoyed exploring the idea of the mysterious relationship between individuals – sometimes idiosyncratic, sometimes poignant – interacting with their environments, but I would not go so far as to say that the work is particularly either symbolical or satirical – or attempting to be either. My concerns as a painter have always been with the basic elements and principles of colour, pattern, space and form, using human figures in their environments as a means to such ends. The figures and their containing spaces offer a rich opportunity to exploit these elements, and the pastel medium is a sensuous and textural means for their expression.
Gregory Kerr Biography
Born in Johannesburg in 1949, Greg spent much of his working life as a teacher and academic while pursuing a career as an artist. The upcoming, Aides Memoires, at Knysna Fine Art (19 February till 9 March 2010) will be his 19th solo exhibition since his first in 1982. He holds a doctoral degree in Aesthetics and Criticism and has taught both practical and theoretical art to all ages and in all sorts of institutions, including the Johannesburg College of Education, the Technikon Witwatersrand and the University of Georgia. He was last formally employed as Professor in Fine Arts at the University of Stellenbosch. He has published papers in a wide range of subjects, including poetry, comic strips, ceramics, art teaching methodology, art history, hermeneutics and language theory. Since 2000 he has had his studio in Schoenmakerskop, near Port Elizabeth and holds drawing and painting workshops for private students in various centres around South Africa. In 2010 three major exhibitions are planned: The Knysna show consists entirely of works in pastel and aquarelle on monotype printed on paper.
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