Two promising Port Elizabeth artists are among the winners of this year’s Sasol New Signatures Art Competition.
Kelly Crouse and Debbie Fann were two of the five merit award winners who each received R10,000 at last Wednesday’s ceremony at the Pretoria Art Museum.Former Grahamstown schoolgirl Jessica Kapp, a final-year fine art student at Stellenbosch University, was the overall winner whose rammed earth columns and embedded object installation piece, titled Mapping Time, earned her R100,000 and a solo exhibition. The competition for emerging artists attracted 604 entries and the final shortlist  included 17 artists from the Bay and two from East London.
Crouse’s mixed media work was titled Medication: CYH7NYO7, while Fann’s entry was an acrylic and digital print titled Cheque or Savings? Crouse’s “bold and confrontational” entry traced her journey of living with a skin disease called perioral dermatitis. She attempted to build a visual narrative documenting the emotional and physical challenges brought on by living with the condition.
Her interdisciplinary approach was seen as innovative and fresh by the judges, pushing the boundaries of contemporary portrait painting into a “new and exciting source domain”. “In third year I started writing the document for the concept that deals with my skin disease,” said Crouse, now in her final year.
“This was quite an eye -opener as the process forced me to expand my knowledge and conceptualise with great detail, allowing me to grow as an artist, build my confidence and develop a new way of thinking.” Crouse and Fann were motivated to enter by their painting lecturer, Professor Pieter Binsbergen, New Signatures’ chair and one of the judges.
Fann’s entry was part of a series of card machine receipt paintings. She entered two of these panels – one digitally printed and the other hand -painted. The work offers commentary on what Fann terms “cultural consumerism”. Working as a waitress in her family’s Chinese restaurant, she is bombarded by an abundance of bills, receipts and credit card printouts daily. The receipts became a metaphor for the sale of her own culture and identity, she said.
The finalists’ works will be shown at the Pretoria Art Museum until October 7.