Retrospective exhibition of PE artist’s works at Bird Street art gallery

From her early days as a young art student at the former Port Elizabeth Technikon, Ethna Frankenfeld was always drawing something, whether on a scrap piece of paper or a serviette.

Now, after her untimely death in 2014, homage is being paid to Frankenfeld’s work and journey as an artist, with the Nelson Mandela University department of visual arts hosting a retrospective exhibition at its Bird Street art gallery.

The exhibition, Holding up the Darkening Sky, which will officially open on Wednesday also coincides with the National Arts Festival and is included as part of the festival’s fringe exhibitions.

Frankenfeld, who died of cancer in her 50s, began creating art in the 1970s when she was still a student and continued until just before her death.

Her long-time life partner Bruce Cadle, who is the curator of the exhibition, said it was a fantastic retrospective showcase of Frankenfeld’s artistic work.

“One of the underlying themes throughout Ethna’s works is being a woman and the concepts of womanfulness.

“Prominent in Ethna’s later years was the theme of loss,” Cadle said.

Cadle, who is a principal lecturer and postgraduate programme leader at the NMU art and design school, said when he began documenting Frankenfeld’s work it became somewhat cathartic for him.

“It is part of the healing process ... because it was more celebratory.

“When I met Ethna she would always be drawing, whether it be on a scrap piece of paper or a serviette,” Cadle said.

Frankenfeld was also a lecturer at NMU before she died.

As part of the exhibition, NMU student and poet Luan Staphorst wrote several poems inspired by Frankenfeld’s works.

Supporting this are Frankenfeld’s journals, documenting her “journeys” and initiating conversations around memory, loss, place and dying.

Fellow curator and a former student of Frankenfeld, Professor Mary Duker of NMU’s school of music, art and design, said though Frankenfeld’s earlier works were in slight contrast to her later works, the pieces selected to be on show created a sense of “disjoining” by placing them side by side.

“The works next to each other talk to one another.

“In Ethna’s [later works] she refers to death ... usually an artist will express this as a way of mourning the death of a loved one, but here we see Ethna shows her pain in her work,” Duker said.

Cadle said Frankenfeld, considered a consummate creative, intuitive sketcher and master printmaker, should be acknowledged for having a keen sense of translating the human condition into compellingly crafted artwork.

Ducker said it was hoped that having the exhibition included in the National Arts Festival programme would give Frankenfeld more acknowledgment and inspire other artists in the Eastern Cape.

The 72 pieces of art, which include prints, drawings, Frankenfeld’s personal journals and some installations, were in part from Cadle’s own personal collection, with some lent to him by private collectors.

Holding up the Darkening Sky will be exhibited at the NMU Bird Street art gallery until July 12.