PRESS RELEASE
JACO VAN SCHALKWYK: Corpus Naturae
Jan 8 – Jan 31, 2026
JACO VAN SCHALKWYK
CORPUS NATURAE
Opening reception: 8 January 2026 at 18:00
In this body of work, I explore the fragile threshold between the visible and the concealed - between the surface we walk upon and the layered depths that lie beneath. Corpus Naturae, Latin for “The Body of Nature,” is both a meditation on landscape and a quiet inquiry into the ways we embody, inherit, and project meaning onto the natural world.
The forest, in my work, becomes more than a setting. It is a psychological and symbolic space- a place of transformation drawn from myth and folklore. In these stories, the forest is where we are tested. It is the realm of the unconscious: fluid, shadowed, and ertile. It holds memory, instinct, and grief, and it asks us to surrender our fixed identities in order to truly encounter what lies beyond them.
This exhibition marks a significant departure in my visual approach. While my previous work often leaned toward darker, monochromatic palettes - sometimes rendered almost entirely in black and white - Corpus Naturae is created in a soft, restrained pastel palette. These gentle hues evoke the delicacy of flowers and skin, the diffused light of early dawn, or the impression of something remembered rather than seen. The shift is intentional: the palette amplifies the feminine qualities present in both nature and the male form - qualities often overlooked, yet deeply resonant. It brings tenderness and emotional nuance into focus.
I am particularly interested in how we gender nature – how we assign strength and softness, dominance and receptivity, to mountains, rivers, forests, and flowers. These binaries are echoed in the way we construct and perceive human bodies. In Corpus Naturae, I seek to dissolve these distinctions. The male figures I paint emerge from their environments with vulnerability rather than assertion. Their softness mirrors the fragility of ecosystems under pressure. They are part of the landscape, not separate from it.
My intention is not to resolve, but to reveal. These works invite stillness, ambiguity, and attentiveness. They offer no final answers, only a space for sensing what lies beneath - beneath the skin, beneath the earth, beneath our inherited ways of seeing. In a time marked by ecological urgency and social fracture, I turn to nature as both subject and metaphor - not for escape, but for reconnection. A symbiotic space where jungle vines and veins intertwine, where the erotic and the botanical speak the same language, and where the body of nature - Corpus Naturae - includes us all.
*To extend this exploration, the exhibition includes a film installation created with filmmaker Gustaf Tempelhoff and sound artist Dr Jaco Meyer (NWU). Together, painting, film, and sound create an immersive environment that invites viewers to move between surface and depth, and to consider the body of nature- as both a physical and a poetic space.
