The exhibition is hosted by W17 Gallery, an innovative art platform that is part of shared workspace Workshop17. Showing on the first floor of Workshop17 The Bank in Rosebank, these distinct yet related bodies of work speak to the ways humans interact with and shift the landscape – both literally and metaphorically.
Despite the imposing urban materiality that backdrops many of Meyersfield's images, one is struck by the resilience of nature. Life emerges from and coexists with the industrial in his photographs, whether it's lilies growing along a steel fence or a tree trunk surrounded not by a forest floor, but by concrete and pebbles. Against this brutalist urbanity, nature sings a quiet song of hope.
Contrastingly, Vickers' paintings and charcoal drawings have a surreal, dreamlike quality and highlight our society's encroachment on the natural environment. A street light stands sentinel in front of a mountainous landscape, while in other works a seemingly untouched piece of veld has a small piece of tarred road visible in the foreground. These beacons of urban life take on a distinct personality in relationship to wild nature.
Seeing these two artists' work in tandem teases out the tension between the built and natural environment and, with any luck, will change the way you look at weeds growing out of cracks in the pavement forever.
Scapeland opens at W17 Gallery (on the first floor of Workshop 17 The Bank at 24 Cradock Avenue, Rosebank, above Proud Mary) on Thu, May 16 from 17:30. RSVP to claudia@workshop17.com
