OUTSIDE IN | Solo exhibition by Michèle Nigrini
5 March – 15 May 2021
Imibala Gallery, 30 Church Street, Graaff-Reinet
www.michelenigrini.com

In collaboration with the Rupert Museum and the Imibala Gallery, Rosendal based artist Michèle Nigrini will be opening her much-awaited solo exhibition “Outside In” in Graaff-Reinet on 5 March 2021.

ABUNDANCE 100cm x 100cm mixed media on wooden canvas

“Outside In” is Michèle’s latest body of work in which she physically and metaphorically pulls her exterior environment into her studio space.

As a result of the first pandemic lockdown, she had to move her studio to her home. Her new workspace included a repurposed ‘potting shed’ which is partly open to the garden, thus physically connecting her to the outside.

Reflecting our times and Michèle’s personal space, this body of work explores a nostalgia for that which lies on the exterior, in the hopes of bringing a part of it within. Through working in the garden’, Michèle has been able to explore the abundance and energy of her environment, using the confinement of the lockdown as a gift to narrow her focus to the immediate, to be more mindful of beauty in the everyday.

Returning to the original inspiration for her 1993 work, ‘Colour Symphony’ (a 16meter panel consisting of 395 individual works), which was acquired by the Rupert Art Foundation in 1993, Michèle observes her garden with new eyes, seeing that which surrounds her as a vehicle for exploring line, mark, and colour. With her signature, mixed media approach to mark-making, Michèle guides her viewer through the process of looking at the mundane with a renewed perspective. Her work is made using various unconventional tools, many of them from the garden – twigs, plants, handmade brushes, and brooms – in order to search for interesting marks that are outside of the artist’s control. She then systematically ‘curates her chaos’ to complete her image.

“Outside In” is presented in conjunction with a group exhibition of works by 37 artists who drew inspiration from ‘Colour Symphony’ through the Rupert Museum’s Open Call. The group exhibition titled ‘In conversation with Colour Symphony’ will be on show with the iconic Michèle Nigrini panel at the Jan Rupert Art Centre, Graaff-Reinet from 5 March – 5 September 2021.

For more information and the exhibition catalogues please visit the Imibala Gallery at www.imibala.com and the Rupert Museum at www.rupertmuseum.org.

 

2020 Between life and death there’s a library 80 x 80cm wooden canvas mixed medium

 

AGTERSTOEP VIEW mixed media on hahnemuhle paper unframed 30 x 30cm framed 53 x 53cm