After Driekopseiland, Randy Hartzenberg, 1989
(Mixed media on canvas, 186,5 x 150 cm)

Randy Hartzenberg
Makes large, gestural and highly-textured paintings, often incorporating found objects. Concerned with the idea of landscape as a repository of history, memory, social conflict and dispossession, which he says is stored in the collective psyche. According to him, "The landscape is embedded with an accumulated aggregate of dis-ease". While socio-political issues are always implicit in his work, it also refers to more existential concerns - life, death, angst, struggle and trauma, among them.

Training:

1966-1968: Hewat Training College (Art Teacher's Certificate).

1982: University of Cape Town [Higher Diploma in Education

      (Drama)].

1986-1989: Michaelis School of Art, University of Cape Town

      [Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art)].

1992-1994: Michaelis School of Art, University of Cape Town

      [Master of Arts (Fine Art)].



Profile:

Began teaching Art in 1969 and is employed at Alexander Sinton High School, Cape

Town. Ran workshops in Drama at the Community Arts Project, Cape Town, in 1989

and taught Art Method at the Project in the same year. Has also taught Drawing on

a part-time basis at the Architecture and Art Schools, University of Cape Town,

in 1992 and 1993. Apart from being a painter, is also a performance artist, whose

works include The Zoo has Nothing to Hide (Space Theatre Gallery, Cape Town,

1976) and Eight Haptic Strings (Michaelis Gallery, University of Cape Town,

1991). Participated in the Art and Resistance Festival (Gaberone, Botswana, 1982)

as member of the Community Arts Project Mime Group. Currently a member of the

Board of Trustees, Community Arts Project.



Solo Exhibitions

1994: Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town

      (Domestic Baggage).



Group Exhibitions

1976: Space Theatre Gallery, Cape Town (Response to Detentions).

1984: University of Cape Town (Carnegie Conference on Poverty in

      South Africa Exhibition).

      Michaelis Gallery, University of Cape Town (Art and

      Militarism).

1990: Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town (Edges,

      with Jonathan Stodel). 

      Jacobs Liknaitzky Gallery, Cape Town (Freedom Now).

1994: North Western University, Chicago, USA (Displacements:

      South African Works on Paper, 1984-1994).

1995: Primart Gallery, Cape Town, and BMW Pavilion, Waterfront,

      Cape Town (African Encounters).



Collections:

South African National Gallery, Cape Town; The Block Gallery, North Western

University, Chicago, USA; Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town.

Copyright © 2001   iziko museums of cape town