Johann Louw | New Paintings

09 Dec 2010 - 28 Feb 2011

SMAC Art Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of new paintings by Johann Louw. This is Johann Louw’s first solo-exhibition since his mid-career retrospective in 2007.

Johann Louw has in recent years consolidated his position as one of the country’s foremost painters. His new exhibition, produced over 2 years, displays the maturity and poise of an artist in harmony with his practice. A subtle evolution is noticeable in the work; greater use of colour and a shift from defined themes to broader explorations of emptiness and voidness. Remarkably, the characteristic strength and intensity of Louw’s paintings are even more profound and tangible in this new body of work.

“Every body; landscape; sea; portrait can be painted infinitely for Johann, without repetition as the painting becomes a compulsive evolution from one form to the next........for the painter the reality of the subject lies in the experience and process of painting itself and consequently the subject is never finite never finished only temporarily suspended when the painting is on exhibition” (Stefan Hundt: 2010).

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with text by Stefan Hundt, Amanda Botha and Ulrich Wolff.

Johann Louw was born in 1965 and now lives and works in Piketberg outside of Cape Town. He graduated with a BA in Fine Arts, cum laude, from the University of Stellenbosch in 1988, which he supplemented with an MFA, also cum laude, in 1992. Louw has exhibited regularly throughout South Africa and Europe. In 2009 he was one of three South African artists selected to participate in an official collateral exhibition to the 53rd Venice Biennale. This year Louw participated in the 4th Beijing International Art Biennale and the Sabbionetta Biennale for Contemporary Art in Italy.