BIOGRAPHY

Hannalie Taute (b. 1977) started her life’s journey in a small town called Fochville in Gauteng, South Africa.

In 2000, she obtained a National Higher Diploma in Fine Art at PE Technicon (now the NNMU). Nine years ago, she started working with rubber and particularly repurposed rubber inner-tubes, and in 2012 she added embroidery to her list of preferred media.

Her first solo exhibition called Siembamba – let’s play pretend in 2004 was held at the João Ferreira Gallery in Cape Town, and since then, she was part of several group and solo exhibitions. Her upcoming solo exhibition is scheduled for 17 April 2021, with Deepest Darkest Art Gallery in Cape Town.

 Taute was a finalist in 2004 for the ABSA l’Atelier exhibition and a nominee for the Fiesta awards in 2012, 2015 and 2017. She received the Kanna Award for best visual art production at the 2014 KKNK Arts Festival for her solo exhibition called Rubber ever after. In 2017 she represented South Africa at the Museum Rijswijk Textile Biennale in the Netherlands.  

Her work is part of various private collections as well as the academic collection of UNISA. Taute currently resides and works in Riversdale in the Western Cape.

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ARTIST STATEMENT

Hannalie Taute’s work is in a constant state of evolution, which mirrors many of the ideas behind her art. Her process is methodical and laborious, and the artwork depicts moments in time.  By capturing her ‘play-pretend’ family and friends by altering vintage photographs which she finds via friends, family and antique shops, with a non-traditional medium (in this instance, rubber) where the portraits undergo a violent process of change.

 She juxtaposes delicate cotton thread with industrial discarded inner tubes by embroidering a variety of cultural masks and replacing the faces in found photographs, in order to create a violent disruption of the familiar in an unfamiliar setting.

The coarseness of the rubber is counteracted by the delicacy of the thread, but this is subverted, as often the stitching and composition of the rubber inner tubes are delicate, and the thread seems almost rough in its arrangement. The resulting organized chaos resembles our daily lives and external influences. Especially during this mask-wearing era during the pandemic. One central theme, or unifying characteristic, is the repeated exploration of identity and/or relationships within her “paracosmic fantasy”. This so-called “paracosm” is a way in which the artist position herself in the real world.

Taute explores the paracosmic fantasy by means in which people often have many and sometimes conflicting identities to which they answer. “Art is some sort of interesting area where dysfunction is allowed.” *Quote by Mike Kelly

This is perhaps most striking in her more recent work from late the 2020’s, an ongoing series ranging from ceremonial masks and wedding photographs to, groups or individual mask wearing personae.  Fairy-tale fantasy -like creatures and monsters find their way to a variety of photographed portraits as well as larger prints made from small vintage photos with faces replaced by a variety of cultural masks embroidered on rubber.   

Hannalie wants the medium of the piece to interact with the subject manner in a way that forces the viewer to deeply engage and question the artworks, and she aims to create a moment of respite from the chaos while simultaneously illustrating it.

 

To view a list of selected exhibitions click here.