The Sasol Wax Art Award exhibition opens in September at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, as part of Johannesburg’s Arts Alive Festival.
The Sasol Wax Art Award is South Africa’s most prestigious accolade for established artists. It is the only industry benchmark that recognises artists who have achieved professional maturity and are on a par with the best internationally.
Five of South Africa’s top contemporary artists, Usha Seejarim, Wayne Barker, Sue Williamson, Walter Oltmann and Andrew Verster, were selected from over 150 nominations to participate in the second Sasol Wax Art Award exhibition, open to the public from 6 – 29 September 2007.
Currently in its second year, this dynamic project aims to reward professional artists for their achievements and contribution to the visual arts, while also profiling wax, one of Sasol’s major worldwide products. Wax must be featured in either the process, the concept or as a medium in the finalists’ artworks.
This year’s artists have explored the brief in diverse ways. The works on exhibition will include video installations that reveal the secret lives of inner city beauty salons and the women who frequent them; issues around tattooing and body scarification; and a home environment built entirely from wax paper. Other explorations of the product wax range from the use of the traditional lost wax process of bronze casting for sculpture to the active use of bees as a partner in the creation of artworks.
“The proposals we received this year were innovative and unique,” says Carola Ross, executive director of the Sasol Wax Art Award. “Artists have taken up the challenge and are working with some astonishing ideas.”
In our everyday lives, wax applications range from candles and crayons to food coatings, cosmetics and household cleaners. However, it is the product’s application in visual arts that has captured people’s imaginations over many centuries. Wax is the core product in traditional forms of ’encaustic painting’, etching and casting. Recently, artists’ applications of wax have been more varied and innovative.
“The finalists’ works this year have really pushed the envelope in their own art practice, as well as applying the many possibilities offered by the material, both conceptually and technically. There will be something in this show that is sure to appeal to everyone,” says Les Cohn, the Sasol Wax Art Award Curator.
Sasol is a major patron of the visual arts in South Africa. It has a contemporary art collection of some 2000 pieces housed all over the world, and supports a number of initiatives aimed at profiling the sector. Sasol Wax is the world’s largest producers of the product.
The Sasol Wax Art Award Exhibition will be open to the public from 6 – 29 September 2007 at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. It forms part of the Arts Alive Festival.
Daily walkabouts and a dynamic workshop programme are on offer for the public.
Further information is available from the Award organizers, Carola Ross and Associates at 011 726 2502 or on e-mail to wax@mweb.co.za or visit www.sasol.com
Picture: No
Submitted by Taryn Cohn (taryncohn@acenet.co.za)
PR Company: Carola Ross and Associates
Cellphone Number: 083 671 5139
Client's name: Sasol Wax
Website: http://www.sasol.co.za
To comment on this article, click here
