ELIZE VOSSGÄTTER
(b. 1981 Johannesburg, South Africa)

“Painting is an instinctive, observational reaction to the natural patterns of the world.”

Vossgätter’s primary relationship is with paint and involve a constant drive to force back the limits of the material, by engaging the oil pigments with various solvents and additives, in order to find new streams with which to show meaning. Her latest body of work, Natural Order, sees the surface transformed with beeswax. The pigments, both synthetic and organic, are mixed with this natural beeswax. By carving into the wax, the artist creates a multi-layered relief, evoking the physical laws of nature from which she draws her visual vocabulary.

Despite this incessant experimentation and renewal of painterly structure, her sensibility has remained constant: a deep fascination with what it means to be human, and how this constructed humanness exists in relation with our natural environment and with each other. Inspired by human behaviour and the complexity of the day-to-day, her work is investigates the current widespread re-evaluation of the notion of self within the paradigm of nature, and the resultant shifts in our socio-political constructs.

Vossgätter is based in Cape Town and Leipzig. She obtained a BA(FA) from University of Cape Town in 2002.

She has held a number of solo exhibitions since 2012 and participated in various group exhibitions and art fairs locally and internationally. Her residencies have influenced her practice – Istanbul (2013), Art Omi International Arts Centre (NY, USA, 2016) and Pilotenkueche (Leipzig, 2017). The latter affected her work most notably, beginning a new body of  work, titled Natural Order.

SOLO SHOWS

2020
Natural Order, part of the Cubicle Series, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2017
limp, Smith Studio, Cape Town, South Africa

2015
In the end we’re all to blame, Commune1, Cape Town, South Africa

2013
Once there was, and once there was not, AVA, Cape Town, South Africa

2012
Sterntaler, AVA, Cape Town, South Africa

SELECTED GROUP SHOWS
2021
Summer 2021, Everard Read, London, UK

2020
Us, digital exhibition, Everard Read, South Africa
STILL, digital exhibition, Everard Read, South Africa
win/win, exhibition of the official acquisitions of the State of Saxony, Leipzig, Germany
Natural Order, CUBICLE Series, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2019
Verorten/ Entorten, Projektwohnung, Krudebude, Leipzig, Germany
Winter, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Zeitgleich/Zeitseichen, PingPong Kunstraum, Leipzig, Germany
Voila, Halle 14, Leipzig, Germany

2018
Home for the holidays, Summer Show, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2017
Buttersäure Senf, Pilotenkueche, Leipzig, Germany
BiPolar gallery, Leipzig, Germany
Another Antipodes Urban Axis Exhibition, Freemantle, Australia

2016
Surface and Subtext, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Open Studios, Art Omi, New York, USA

2015
Summer show, Everard Read gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Two, Smith Studio, Cape Town, South Africa

2014
Golden Haze, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa
Rust en Vrede, Cape Town, South Africa

2013
Summer show , Casa Labia, Cape Town, South Africa
One in a Million, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa
Archives and Collection, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa

2012
I’d rather be Swimming, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa
Impressions and Responses, Galerie Miz, Istanbul, Turkey
Our Fathers, AVA, Cape Town, South Africa

2010
Amani Festival of Visual Arts, Khayelitsha, South Africa
Vuleka Art competition and exhibition, Belville, South Africa
Conceptual Matters & Matters Conceptual, Erdmann Contemporary, Cape Town, South Africa

ART FAIRS

2016
AKAA in association with Smith Studio
Cape Town Art Fair, in association with Smith Studio, ‘The Conservationist’s Dream’

2015
1:54 Contemporary Art Fair, London, in association with Qubeka Bead Studio
Cape Town Art Fair, in association with Commune1 gallery

2012
Cape Town Art Fair, in association with AVA gallery
Joburg Fringe festival, in association with FNB Johannesburg Art Fair


RESIDENCIES

June-Sept 2017
Pilotenkueche, Leipzig

June-July 2016
Art Omi, New York State

June-July 2012
Galeriremiz, Istanbul