ARTIST INTERVIEW FEATURING GABRIELLE KRUGER AT SMAC GALLERY

Insights from Gabrielle Kruger on her new body of work titled “Wait The Line” showcasing at SMAC Gallery until mid-August 2020. In many ways, a continuation with the concept of “waiting” that emerged with the artist’s inaugural exhibition at SMAC titled “For Paint To Dry” in 2019. Kruger comments on the various aspects of waiting both as a reflection of the current times and as the artistic process of waiting for paint to dry in her studio. The artist provides an intimate glimpse into her artistic processes, her inspirations, artistic references and her journey behind this bold new body of work.

Can you tell us about this new body of work? 

This body of work is very much about the grid and the line as a spatial reference in a global pandemic and time of great uncertainty. This exhibition is about lockdown, about confinement and about demarcating how we move. The title of the show Wait the Line has two major references; firstly, to the physical lines of paint that I extrude and secondly, to performance artist Francis Alÿs and his idea of “walking the line” as he left a trail a paint behind him as he walked with a leaking tin of paint– and Alÿs was in turn inspired by Paul Klee who said that “drawing was taking a line for a walk”. So this line that I make myself, I have a systemic process in the studio of how I extrude these lines; I hang my plastic on the wall, I systematically extrude the lines of paint, wait for them to dry, peel them off, hang them up to dry further, and these become my collage materials in a sense – I cut them up, I weave with them, I knot them, I carve them away etc. So the lines essentially have become like the words in a dictionary to my work as a whole. The paint exists as a line, I almost saw this as taking Francis Alÿs’ performance and taking it to another literal form – picking up that paint line and walking the line back to the canvas in a sense.

A look at Gabrielle Kruger’s Sketches: 

These small works, which I see as my Sketches, represent thoughts in my sketchbook – when I have an idea, I experiment with it on the canvas. When I experiment with a new technique, it can lead to a bigger work. I believe I think in technique – my practice is very much process-based. It has meaning for me, which happens while I make. The meaning happens in the making. During lockdown, I worked with many of these small canvases that I had with me. Due to the lack of materials I had to work with, this also played a role in my thinking about colour and technique in creating new works and working sparingly with the paint. Colour always plays a role in the composition of the piece. For this show, I really had to think about how to use the colour wisely. This is the first time I am also working with red, which is new for me. I like to look at the limitations of paint and play as much as I can with the acrylic paint. I enjoy all the different stages of the process – these Sketches in a sense illustrate a glimpse into my experimentations with the paint.

Can you talk us through some of these techniques?

I play with the paint. During my Masters, I was experimenting with both oil and acrylic paint and I thought about how I could evade the frame or canvas. I started experimenting with peeling paint off. During that time, I wanted to create a painting that could exist as a painting without any support (no wire, no canvas, no backing). This idea that the paint as a surface existed as the painting. That started a whole new conversation in my head. I learnt a whole new language of painting during my studies.

A look at Gabrielle Kruger’s Wait in Line:

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Image courtesy of SMAC Gallery, copyright Gabrielle Kruger

I can definitely say that this represents a new progression in my work. I made use of all the different pieces I already had to work with, as during and just after lockdown I was waiting for my paint distributor to reopen his factory. As a result, I worked with the dried pieces of paint I already had and re-worked them together. I never throw anything away, from an environmental perspective and a desire to not pollute; I use all of the off-cut pieces of paint. This work represents different processes; layered slabs of paint, woven pieces of paint, working the paint away with a grater etc. I love something small making up a whole. It is soothing for me to work in this labour-intensive way and I hope to give the viewer something soothing to look at during all of this chaos. My previous works have been much more colourful but I wanted these new works to have a more muted and calming feeling to them. We all need a moment of reflection during these difficult times.

A look at Gabrielle Kruger’s Blank Space and Bending the Line:

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Image courtesy of SMAC Gallery, copyright Gabrielle Kruger

For this body of work, there was an emphasis on the colour white, which reflects this feeling of emptiness and limbo, but also allowing for some breathing space amidst the chaos. Regarding the paint I use, I have it made up just for me because it is a bit stronger than standard acrylic paint and I worked with the chemical engineer to help make the paint less brittle and slightly more elastic. I receive the tubs of opaque white paint and I mix in the pigments myself. During lockdown, I did not have a lot of pigment with me so I used that in making these white works. So in a sense I worked with non-colour. By contrast, making black paint requires mixing in so much pigment but I enjoyed the duality of working with either white or black paint. There is a stillness to these works, they are almost monochromatic. I wanted to be respectful of the times. The idea of simply continuing with my pastel and brighter colours didn’t seem right. During this time, I feel that we are all mourning – mourning for normality lost, people lost, chaos all over the world – but I did not want to make the show about mourning in a sense but about this feeling of limbo that we are all experiencing.

A look at Gabrielle Kruger’s Peaking Through:

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Image courtesy of SMAC Gallery, copyright Gabrielle Kruger

I see my sculptures as paintings too. All of my off-cut pieces that I cannot use back onto a work, I use to form my paintiglomerates (like a plastiglomerate, but made up of paint). Sometimes I’ll build onto that with what I call paint cement, mixing paint with tiny polystyrene balls and bits and pieces of paint to create some volume. This work is also a wearable piece that can be worn on the head, informed by my performances pieces of Wearable Paintings. Often, I enjoy working away from the canvas. There is a theorist I like called Barbara Bolt and she talks about “process-based production as a practice” and I very much consider myself to be part of this type of thinking. She referenced Heidegger’s “Time and Being” and this idea that through one’s making, time and hands – meaning is created through this. In all my works, the meaning definitely comes through the making. 

A look at Gabrielle Kruger’s Tight Lines:

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Image courtesy of SMAC Gallery, copyright Gabrielle Kruger

All of the titles I have given to works in this show reflect very subtle references to the current times. This work titled Tight Lines can refer both to the literal tight lines on the canvas and to the way we have all been crowded up together during lockdown in South Africa, which has been somewhat of a contradiction. This concept of the line plays an important role in this particular show. At the moment, we very much find ourselves demarcated by lines. The line as an abstract border between people and places. We are constantly thinking about our movements. I was reflecting too on how the line, in a figurative sense, is unclear at the moment. If you go to the dictionary definition of a line, there are many definitions but one of them is a line as representing a rule. We are currently living within many grey areas, in terms of the rules. I was thinking about the rules behind lockdown and this notion of crossing or breaking the line.

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