Curiously, we occasionally feel we already know a new place, or that it knows us. An impassive landscape becomes the channel for our intuition. I wonder if this intimate relationship exists because our evolution is interwoven with being attuned to the horizon, to the way clouds form as air collides with a mountain, with the angle of the sun as it catches the light-seeking cabbage tree in the deepest part of a valley. Increasingly, we snatch these connections through a moving car window or steal a glimpse of a beloved place by scrolling through photos on our mobile phones. Access to untamed places is becoming constrained. Karin Daymond
Karin Daymond, Grass Interrupted, Pastel, 42 x 55cm, 2022
Returning to pastels, a medium that I last used thirty years ago, I have relished their immediacy and grappled with their fragility. These clunky sticks of pigment have an intrinsic innocence, perhaps because of the limitations of mark and colour palette. My heart was set on working with the constraints of the medium. The more I whittled the work down to an instant that would have passed only seconds later as the light changed, the closer I got to a universal feeling. Our experiences of landscape are intimations of both our significance and our insignificance – an idea that is increasingly percolating to the surface of our consciousness.
Artist Biography
Karin Daymond’s work is strongly rooted in the South African landscape.
“Although a work starts from a geographical point, it quickly becomes my inner space. I live within this space even during more mundane activities. I become involved with the possibilities of paint and design; how they can be used to describe an environment, but also how the marks, textures, patterns can capture the energy and rhythm of both the external and internal landscapes that I associate with a place”.
She speaks of landscapes as having an emotional identity, for instance, the vegetation in the Karoo is restrained and cautious, while the natural growth in the Lowveld of Mpumalanga is flamboyant. Intensive mark-making, patterning, and colour create a world within a world. “Sometimes a landscape enhances my sense of self and how I belong, and sometimes it’s the other way around”. The exploration of belonging is central to much of her work, recently explored in the context of migrancy and refugeedom.
Daymond works from her studio in Mpumalanga, a province known for its sub-tropical beauty. She committed to her full–time art practice in 2008, following many years of teaching. Her primary medium is large-scale oil painting. Drawing and printmaking, particularly lithography, form an integral part of her work.
Daymond based in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga, was born in 1967 in Durban, South Africa and has a BA Fine Art from The University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her work is included in many public and private collections, both in South Africa and internationally. Amongst these are the UNISA collection and the University of the North-West.
10.09.2022 – 08.10.2022
Exhibition opening: 10th of September at 11h00 for 11h30
GALLERY 2 | Address: 142 Jan Smuts Ave, Parkwood, Johannesburg, 2193
www.gallery2.co.za
Karin Daymond, Detail