AD-REFLEX

Award-winning art duo, AD-Reflex, formed in 2015 and consists of contemporary South African artists Johan Conradie and Karl Gustav Sevenster.

Johan Conradie obtained a MA(Visual Arts) degree, from the University of Pretoria in 2006. He has lectured at numerous academic institutions including the University of South Africa and the University of Pretoria. Johan was a finalist in two of South Africa’s most prestigious art competitions, including the ABSA Atelier (1999, 2000, 2006, 2008) and Sasol New Signatures (1997, 1998, 2000, 2001). Apart from exhibiting his own work locally and internationally, he has also curated a number of exhibitions and received public commissions including paintings commissioned by Media Tenor International and Bonn, Germany. During May, 2013 he participated in a South African group exhibition in Paris, France at the highly esteemed Orangerie Exhibition Centre of the French Senate. He was awarded the prestigious residency at the Cité des Arts, Paris during August-September, 2014

Karl Gustav Sevenster is a self-taught digital artist, living and working in Johannesburg, South Africa. He obtained a BA (Social Sciences) degree from the University of the Freestate in 1986 and worked most of his early years as a computer programmer and specialist. In 1999 KarlGustav decided to dedicate to a full time art practice. Through the use of of digital technology (software, graphic tablet, infrared pen) he creates original digital artworks, transferred onto a variety of media (Perspex, Archival paper, and C-print DIASEC facemount. Karl has exhibited his work at the Dubai Creek Art Fair 2008, River Art Fair 2013 (Miami during the Art Basel Week), Art Monaco 2014 (Monte Carlo) as well as various local exhibitions in Johannesburg and Cape Town between 2003 and 2022.

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Statement:

The practice of AD-Reflex can be likened to a physical experience of the digital world. Utilising digital elements and 3-D modelling techniques with traditional painting, the work borders on the alchemical where no clear distinction can be drawn between the painterly and the digital. An AD-Reflex painting is a fusion of opposites, uniting the gooey mess of paint with technology’s clean, polished and seductive veneer. Subsequently, their work forms a distinctly new visual language that is resolutely grounded in the ‘here’ and ‘now’. 

The artist duo conflates and extends historical painting techniques, displaying both a Baroque mastery of chiaroscuro and a gestural handling of paint indebted to Abstract Expressionism. The work is characterized by a wealth of pictorial fragments with a flowing and somewhat deceptive spatial arrangement that results in a collage-like gathering of distinct pictorial motifs. Their innovative and radical interpretation of the most diverse subjects, combined with the sensuality and tactility of the paint medium activate their conceptual and symbolic meanings. 

With a strong focus on process, this mode of making embraces and integrates the digital and the handmade - printed imagery combines with layers of oil and thick impasto, blurring the boundaries, and creating a new kind of representation.

INTERNATIONAL AWARDS:

• Nina Torres Art Award of Excellence 2017 (Miami, USA) - SECOND PLACE
• The 2018 "F The Art World" International Art Competition - Category WINNER Fine Art/Mixed Media
• The London Contemporary Art Prize 2018 - FINALIST
• RE:ARTISTE 4th Annual International Exhibition "Show Your World" - WINNER