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Lucy Stuart-Clark

Cape Town

GARDENING IN SOUTHERN AFRICA (2012)

Type of book work: Unique / sculptural book-object (one-of-a-kind)
Dimensions: 220 x 142 x 32
Media: Book with collaged diorama

Artist's / designer's statements

In this gardening book, I collaged a diorama-like scene in which I replaced a rugby team's ball with a vase of flowers.

The dioramas turn the books into little museums.





LONDON HAS A GARDEN (2012)

Type of book work: Unique / sculptural book-object (one-of-a-kind)
Dimensions: 224 x 142 x 27
Media: Book with collaged diorama

Artist's / designer's statements

In a book about London's attractions, I collaged a scene in which a British gentleman reclines in front of a Johannesburg gold mine. London's garden became its colonies. Since graduation I have been working primarily in collage, printmaking and ceramics, playing with text and images from old books in particular. I have a great love of literature and art history, and the spaces that house these treasures - libraries, museums and galleries. As a first-generation South African, I have always been fascinated by my British heritage - by its more personal aspects but also the undeniable impact that colonialism had on the country in which I was born. I would never claim to be British, but politically today I have a tenuous claim to being South African. Since graduating from university, my work has often used collage and ceramics to play with this tension, with the fact that history has an undeniable daily presence in South Africa. Collage allows me to turn a playful ethnographic eye on my heritage. I like to think of my collages and ceramic sculptures as dioramas or trophies to the everyday, but an everyday that is always shadowed by history. My collages and ceramics are often accompanied by Dada-like phrases cut from old books. I enjoy the odd profundity that arises when combining these nonsense phrases with ordinary domestic scenes. I love the space between text and visuals where, having had nothing in common, they can suddenly begin to communicate volumes by requiring a viewer to use their imagination to fill in the logical gaps - as a viewer you create your own story somewhere between word and image.





Artist

Education

2012 Masters of Philosophy in Visual Arts (MPhil VA Cum Laude) specialising in illustration, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
2009 Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA Cum Laude) specialising in printmaking, Rhodes University, South Africa

Exhibitions

2015 Stellar (group exhibition), Salon 91 Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa (December)
2013 50th anniversary Illustrator's Exhibition (group exhibition), Bologna Children's Book Fair, Italy (March) & Japan (December)
2011 Handbound (group exhibition), Sasol Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2013 First Editions (group exhibition), Salon 91 Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa (December)
2009 ABSA L'Atelier Award National Exhibition (group exhibition), Johannesburg, South Africa

Residencies

2017 OBRAS Holland, Netherlands (September)
2012 Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, Venice, Italy (September)

Illustrated published works

2017 My Great Expedition, to be published by Publishing Print Matters, Cape Town, South Africa, www.printmatters.co.za
2016 New Contrast South African Literary Journal (Volume 44, Issue 173-176, Autumn-Summer 2016)
2013 Table Mountain's Holiday, published by Publishing Print Matters, Noordhoek, Cape Town, South Africa, www.printmatters.co.za



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