SMAC Gallery is pleased to present At Sixty: Part Two - Paintings (1995 - 2015), the second installment of a three part exhibition series by Johann Louw. At Sixty: Part Two opens on Thursday 6 November at SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch.

Johann Louw’s emotive terrains suggest intrigue and anonymity. His environments, and their mirroring psychological boundaries, intercept a crossover between fiction and reality. Almost filmlike, they capture a snapshot of narrative in motion. Stefan Hundt perceptively notes Johann's ability to manipulate and model paint in a way that engages the inner psyche of the viewer, while simultaneously offering them converging perspectives—all on a singular surface with its distortions. Louw engages with notions of the wasteland in contrast to portraiture and the human body. In instances, such as Selfportret met Stoel (2010), his work confronts both the ‘self’ and the viewer. Throughout Louw’s oeuvre, a recurring motif of a nude figure with a concealed identity appears virtually “decapitated” or cut out of frame. From one frame to the next, a disparate conversation unfolds, an invisible thread connecting them. The more the viewer engages, the more decipherable elements appear against the abstract: a dressmaker's mannequin against the haze; an interrogation about to happen, a quiet vantage point - on the edge of another reality. When exhibited together, Louw’s work builds a world that can be visualised as a shadowed room containing a figure in between two worlds, remembering a third. Forming a subtle, stark, and immersive reality, this work feels both imagined and familiar.

Johann Louw was born in 1965 in Belville. He currently lives and works in Wellington, South Africa. Louw graduated with a Masters in Fine Art from Stellenbosch University in 1992, and has since exhibited widely, both in South Africa and abroad. In 2007, the Sanlam Art Collection presented a mid-career retrospective as a tribute to Louw’s extensive output and distinguished career over the past two decades.