ABSTRACTION INTO MOTION

(THE FRENCH CONNECTION EXHIBITION)

Nel Erasmus
Abalone Art Gallery, June 2016

A warm welcome to Nel Erasmus and her very

special solo exhibition at Abalone Art Gallery.
Nel is an artist with a strong and nearly lifelong
French connection. This is the title, which was
chosen by the Hermanus FynArts Festival team
for its celebration in June 2016.
Nels Frenchinspired, non-figurative works have fascinated me since the late
eighties, when my business partner and I selected artworks from her wide variety
of paintings and drawings for our gallery in Pretoria.
The works that appear so spontaneous and instinctive, as if created without prior
conception or planning, have always left a strong impression on me. I am therefore
delighted that Nel responded positively to my invitation to participate in the Festival
with her show.
In this current exhibition, Abstraction into Motion, Nel transforms emotions into
motion. Her resolute dynamic style gives her the possibility to explore and describe
the undescribable, the undepictable: the rhythm of life, where subtly hidden
figurative elements, stripped of the details of their outer form, explode into a
dancing flight, punctuated with vivid colours and bold forms.
Abalone Art Gallery is proud of hosting Nel Erasmus and her inspiring art during the
Hermanus Fynarts Festival 2016 and thanks her for the wonderful works she has
created for this exhibition.
Ortrud Mulder
Gallery owner
www.abalonegallery.co.za

Born 1928, Nel Erasmus obtained a BA in Fine

Art at Wits and a NATC at The Witwatersrand
Technical College in the early 1950s.
After teaching in art in Johannesburg and London, she settled in France in 1953,
studying at the Academie Ranson, Ecole des Beaux Arts and the Sorbonne.
In 1958 she was invited by Michel Seuphor to take part in the exhibition that
launched A Dictionary of Abstract Painting at Galery Creuze, Paris. And in 1964,
she was again invited to exhibit her work at the launch of Abstract Painting: 50
years of accomplishment.
Nel has both written and featured in multiple publications on abstract art, such
as 1945 1970 America, Africa, Asia, Oceania.
From 1957 through to 1977, Nel worked at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, first as
an assistant to then Director Dr. Anton Hendriks and then later as Director herself,
from 1966.
During this time and beyond, Nel had more than 30 solo exhibitions across the
country. And in 2015, as JAG celebrates its 100th anniversary, they have honoured
her in their hard cover for her work at the gallery.
In 1977, Nel took to early retirement to focus on her work and has happily spent
the majority of her time in her studio ever since.
Between 1982 and 91, her work was regularly shown at Cassirer Fine Art in
Rosebank.
Since 2007, Nel has exhibited regularly at Dawids Choice Gallery in Sandton and
in 2009, Smac Gallery in Stellenbosch showed her portraits of duality.
In 2012, Nel made it once again onto the pages of a publication, but this time
Smac published a book solely dedicated to her lifes work.

Nel Erasmus own words: April 2016

FLIGHT CANVASES OF WHITE, BLACK, BLUE, RED & YELLOW

NOW EVERYTHING IS COMING

TOGETHER
together to make up one whole an
interdependent ONE: a real statement.
After 70 years of playing, fighting, struggling and persevering with the vocabulary
of form, I now boldly juxtapose line and plane; drawing and painting; colour and no
colour; volume and flatness even movement and stillness, to form this one visual
universe.
They have all come together.
They sit happily together.
Every stroke, dot and plane links up with every other dot, stroke and plane.
They sing together.
They dance together.

ABSTRACTION INTO MOTION or

PATTERNS OF ENERGY AND ACTION
where the flyer [the bird], the runner [the horse], the human body, the
boat, have become symbols of motion symbols of life.
The need to simplify, to see clearly and look beyond the surface of things, runs deep with me. Abstraction has served me
well; it continues to do so.
Abstraction; taking away; stripping the idea or thing from its physical accompaniments, takes me closer to the content and
meaning of that which surrounds us and attracts us.

Their content: they convey movement, rhythm, flux, dismemberment, tension,

turbulence, their sum total is energy.

Subtle patterns of movement [energy patterns] of expansion and compression of tension, rhythm, flux, speed or flow,
appear as borders and outlines give way to them.

These patterns of energy link us on a deeper or more conscious level to what we all
experience. The only difference is that we generally experience them confusedly,
emotionally or unconsciously [unawareness] and disinterestedly. Here are patterns to
link us to what we feel and see, in other words link us to ourselves and to our world.

Bodies become a crossroad of energies entering and leaving the originally dense or solid form. It becomes possible to look
beyond the physical accompaniments and gain insight into the character of things: possible to flow, glide or dart with the
flyer or with the masts of boats as they play around in the water or for the horse to dissolve in its own rhythms of speed
and power.

ABSTRACTION INTO MOTION

(THE FRENCH CONNECTION EXHIBITION)

Nel Erasmus

Boats Torre del Mar

25 x 33.5 cm ink on paper 1955

Cross Roads

Four Directions

99 x 71 cm mixed media on paper 1976

97 x 70 cm mixed media on paper 1976

No Boundaries

Nobility

35 x 49.5 cm ink on paper with collage 1979

70 x 100 cm ink on Fabriano 1980

Black Wing

Together Alone

50 x 70 cm mixed media on paper 2008

50 x 70 cm oil and graphite on Fabriano 2013

Currents

Merging

70 x 100 cm mixed media on Fabriano 2015

70 x cm mixed media on Fabriano 2015

Speed/Crossing Over

Glide

75 x 117 cm oil and graphite on canvas 2016

76 x 102 cm oil and graphite on canvas 2016

Descending

Another Space (Phoenix)

76 x 92 cm oil and graphite on canvas 2016

61 x 76 cm oil and graphite on canvas 2016

Turmoil and Tension

100 x 100 cm oil and graphite on canvas 2016

Abalone Art Gallery

The Courtyard
2 Harbour Road
Hermanus
Tel 028 313 2935

Dawid Ras Gallery

18 Silvela Road
Sandown Estate
Sandton
Cell 082 492 9777

Smac Gallery
1st Floor, De Wet Centre
2 Church Street
Stellenbosch
Tel 021 887 3607