PRESS RELEASE
ELODIE BURLS: In Fragile Keeping
Oct 31 – Nov 30, 2026
Elodie Burls | In Fragile Keeping
Opening reception: 31 October 2026 at 11:00
In our increasingly tawdry world of mass-produced AI slop and clickbait, beautiful handmade artworks stand out all the more with their inherent honesty and quality shining from amidst all of the cheap imitations.
Such is the work of Elodie Burls, and we are privileged to be giving her this major solo exhibition in what I know will be an important career. She has taken a recherché technique, mastered it utterly, and is creating works that combine glowing and lambent colours like sun through stained glass with structures that are dreamlike and yet modern and matter-of-fact simultaneously.
These landscapes and “pavilions” remind me of artists as diverse as John Piper and Piranesi but, as all good works do, they have a sense of place, and they were made in the gentle light of the Elgin Valley in which she lives.
- Trent Read
2026
Elodie Burls (b. 1981) is a South African painter working in dye-based inks and bleach on resin-coated photographic paper. Her work explores the fragile threshold where man-made structures meet the natural world, often through glass, reflection and liminal space. She works by listening rather than planning, letting the ink flow first and revealing the image gradually. Bleach adds light, fire and chance.
Burls came to painting in her early forties after twenty years as a creative entrepreneur working with technology clients. She studied drama and English at Rhodes University and has trained with painter Cathy Milner since 2021.
She lives and works in the Elgin Valley, outside Cape Town.
Her work has been shown at 99 Loop Gallery, Cape Town; Weissraum Gallery, Eltville; District4art, Vienna; Knysna Fine Art; and the Investec Cape Town Art Fair with 99 Loop Gallery.
