My feelings about paper are something I don't hide. Printmaking classes at art school left scars, that are continually abraded by the horror of the pretty box identity work that is the mainstay of young lost undergraduates and horrible artists. The idea of cutouts makes me cold sweat, and the words moleskine, fabriano, 2B and putty rubber make it freeze onto my body. Awful, mean, tactile material. Shudder.

So I walked into the AVA with some apprehension this afternoon. I missed the opening owing to a mixture of being mildly ill and discovering all six seasons of Sex and the City on DVD (it happens to the best of us). I must admit though instead of horror Liza Grobler's Nine Chicks and a Dick series left me pleasantly amused. The lines had whimsy, and the surreal (can one still use that word?) approach to drawing wasn't overblown, didn't leave a bad taste, and was funny. Only problem was there were 9 pictures of chicks, one portrait of a dick all making good conceptual senses, and then a strange and ugly drawing of an eye, and some balls of barb wire sculptures. One must ask why. Still better than the shite that normally adorns paper.

The next room was also nice. This show called Paper and Me was a group show about some artists relation to paper. Some was gross, and I can't even remember it, just a blur of little torn out things and some decorative crap that'd look good above my TV when I advance to all four seasons of Grey's Anatomy. But some of it was ok. Lynette Bester had a series called Bitter Sweet that was paper pulp moulded into the shape of tree bark, funny in the same way that that Sushi restaurant with the fish tank tables was funny. Just slightly less macabre. Marna Hatting made some nice mysterious drawings. There was someone else who made some cut and paste things, called Waiting for Information which was interesting in a cut and paste cutesy way. can't remember the artist because (see paragraph one) I wasn't carrying a notebook.

Kirsty Gallery Director asked me to promote the New Media room, which has had a dearth of submissions since it opened. She says with all the moaning about video art recently somebody should be getting off their arses.

Oh, and there were some paintings upstairs.

Labels: ava, review, south african art, south african artist