Current Work and Mixed Media Installations
Below is a sample selection of current art works and assemblages.
"Shake, rattle and roll"
Mixed media installation madre from wood panels, stretched canvas, acrylic paint, bicycle mudgaurd, sparkplug and oil can found in the Richtersveld.
Title: !ou-/ais
Mixed media with wood, acrylic on canvas and bicycle wheels.
The title is a Nama word which
refers to the chiefs fire from which all other fires are kept alive. In other
words, it implies keeping the life-force of the Nama people alive.
Title: "Clearing Customs"
Mixed media with wood and acrylic on canvas.
Mixed media installation madre from wood panels, stretched canvas, acrylic paint and metal chain.
With the current state of heightened security at airports, Slingsby has responded by focusing on the lugage of travellers as it passes through scanners.
"Wooden spoon" 2006
Mixed media installation madre from wood panels, stretched canvas, acrylic paint, wooden spoon and enamel food bowl used by the Nama.
"Vanishing of the dreams"
Mixed media installation made from wood panels, stretched canvas, acrylic paint and a found wheel from the Richtersveld.
Double Edge 2004
acrylic on canvas, plastic junk, perspex, wood, vinyl lettering
122.5 x 197 cm
‘Double Edge’ is a mixed media painting expressing the concerns I have of buying into a mass marketing system at the expense of individuality and of reflecting indigenous characteristics.
The plastic was collected from Table Bay beach in Cape Town. It represents a time capsule of how we work, manufacture and play. Colourful and inviting it implies expendability. Our pristine beaches, awash with flotsam and jetsam, clearly illustrate the expendability once an item’s use is over.
The 12 faces imply a pantheon, along with a Judas. The colours of the faces have assimilated the colours of the plastic. The metal knives and forks imply buying into the system with the enthusiasm of the glutton. The double-sided blades speak in conjunction with the title. ‘Double Edge’ refers to contradictions, e.g. useful and expendable, whilst the repetitious letter coding, conveys how we are shaped by the complex arrangement of systems that control our lives. The aeroplanes and motorbikes refer to the exploitation of our finite oil reserves. The dubiousness of the price paid for these ‘benefits’ is thought provoking.
"Table" 190 x 130 cm 2004
Wood, perspex, plastic junk, neon lighting, metal
The Cycle of Illusion
Stooping over what amounts to backbreaking work, the artist Robert Slingsby, regularly combs the sands of Table Bay in a constant effort to find vital pieces for his art. Not every day is as successful. This is determined by wind blowing, sand shifting, slowly revealing the jewel like treasures. Picking up the pieces is a highly selective process. The plastic must still have robustness; whilst the most prized forms include toys such as soldiers, monopoly houses, and misshapen, amorphous pieces that have no recognizable associations, plastic sucker sticks, pellets or balls of plastic, and pieces that have broken off from larger objects. Colour is important too, from faded neon’s, every shade of the rainbow and the less common earthy tones. At home they are washed and dried. Some pieces may be required to be reworked, making them appropriate to be applied to the painted surfaces. What was once useful, became dispensable then……………noxious junk and now a twenty-first century artifact. The cycle of illusion acts as a metaphor and testimony to the consciousness of those that now inhabit the Cape.
To fully appreciate his art, the significance of the junk has to be understood.
Of the many journeys Slingsby has traveled both physically and metaphorically, this is a particularly important one. It starts two decades ago, when on his return from five years of studying in Holland, he took great pleasure in pursuing his ability to observe artifacts. In particular those of the strandlopers or koi that inhabited the beaches, abundant in their life offerings.
It was clear that the stretch of beach flanked by the city harbour on one side and a cluster home development on the other was in fact a rich midden revealing a wealth of artefacts as the winds and tides exposed sensitive dune areas. It was inevitable that he discovered a skull which the museum eventually excavated revealing a complex burial site containing numerous skeletons customarily laid to rest with their belongings including tortoise shell bowls, strings of ostrich eggshell bead necklaces, the tools to m make them and worked stone implements.
Protests to the relevant authorities to inhibit the development of this last remaining sacred stretch of beach fell on deaf ears. Despite the changes, Slingsby continued to visit this site. He contemplated the encounter between the first boats laden with colonists confronting the indigenous inhabitants, who were living in a state of complete equality and equilibrium with their surrounds. Today, as he scans the sands of Table Bay, all he is confronted with are bits of plastic. It was not by co-incidence that he believed that these modern artifacts contain a story that needs to be conveyed in his art.
His first major art work involving the Table Bay junk was made in 1995. The next time he used it as a major statement for the current metaphor of consciousness was for an exhibition in London in 2001. Currently it is again a significant feature of his art.
