Once upon a time I received a stuffed monkey from my brother in law. The monkey reminded me of a Tori Amos song called “Bliss”

and so: “Father I killed my monkey” (2015 version) was born :

….it was a piece where I experimented with stretching the rubber like a canvas and using oil paint straight onto the rubber as well….

but not feeling totally satisfied, I reworked it, covering the oil paint with thread yet again:

Now in 2019, I am invited to show work at the Hermanus Fine Arts Festival which starts on the 7th of June 2019.

33 South-African artists working with textile/fiber were invited with a brief to come up with work inspired by ‘music’ for the group exhibition titled: Shades and tones.

Not feeling satisfied with “Father I killed my monkey” I decided to ‘kill the monkey’ and rework it again. This time using Madonna as a starting point for this music-themed exhibition, not because I am a fan (I still prefer to listen to Tori)  but because I admire how Madonna has always pushed the boundaries.  I decided to focus on two songs from her early work, and use it as titles for these:

Since on the subject of ‘music’….I would like to leave you with this quote from Patti Smith:

“That’s what artists do, that’s what poets do…we all do it.  We start with something, and sometimes we destroy everything that we’ve made in order to get to the core place where we started from.”