James de Villiers Home

CV of James de Villiers
Email 111@111.co.za
Phone: 083 763 8216
Born 1954 in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu Natal
Presently living in Johannesburg, Gauteng
Republic of South Africa

EXHIBITIONS AND ACTIVITIES (selection)

· 1981 Orange Free State (OFS) Technikon Old Students Exhibition· 1985 One person exhibition at the Market Gallery, Johannesburg
· 1989 University of South Africa (UNISA) student exhibition, Pretoria
· 1991 OFS Technikon 10th Anniversary Exhibition, Bloemfontein
· 1991 UNISA student exhibition, Pretoria
· 1991 Kempton Park Art Competition, overall and category winner
· 1992 "Made in August" exhibition at the Newtown Galleries, Johannesburg
· 1992 Demonstration at the annual South African Art Historians Conference, UNISA, Pretoria
· 1992 Usable Art, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Johannesburg
· 1992 101 Miniatures, ICA, Johannesburg
· 1993 Group Show, Anti-Gravity Gallery, Rosebank, Johannesburg
· 1993 "Drawing with light", group show, ICA, Johannesburg
· 1993 Alternative Photographic Print Workshop, University Witwatersrand and the ICA with Bob Cnoops
· 1993 Group Show, Newtown Galleries, Johannesburg
· 1993 Johannesburg Corporate Art, a group show at the Artists Co-Operative, Midrand
· 1993 One-person exhibition at the Long Gallery, S A Association of Art Gallery, Cape Town
· 1994 Group Show at the ICA, Johannesburg
· 1994 "Biting The Ballot", Rembrandt Gallery, Johannesburg
· 1994 Co-designed and worked on the Bensusan Photographic Museum, Museum Africa, Johannesburg
· 1994 Started Newtown Artspace, used for Biennale Fringe activities and studio space
· 1995 Fringe coordinator for Africus Johannesburg Biennale
· 1995 Curators Choice Exhibition, Rembrandt Gallery, Johannesburg
· 1995 Started De Villiers Gallery in Fairview, Johannesburg
· 1996 "Landscapes", two man show at Gallery Palette, Pretoria Art Gallery with Pieter Swanepoel
· 1996 Small Spaces Gallery opened at Carfax, Johannesburg
· 1997 Designed and constructed "Sinclair Beiles and The Beat Hotel" for the French Institute at Carfax
· 1997 Curated Eurovirus Exhibitions and exhibited on same
· 1997 Participated as an artist in Jahn Beukes’ "Group Spiral" music production· 1998 Left Carfax to start Gallery111, Kimberley Rd, Johannesburg
· 1998 Curated various shows at Gallery 111
· 1998 Participated in group show, " Buttons" at the Civic Gallery, Johannesburg
· 1999 Participated in group exhibition touring Mexico and the US, "Transmigrations 1999" with installation "Architecture of Air" and accompanying soundscape by Andi Spicer.
· 2000 Gallery 111 at Lancaster Square, Kensington. Curated 13 exhibitions and events.
· 2001 Gallery 111.3 project in Fairview.
· 2002 Completion of Botsotso/111 Poetry CD project, "Purple Light Mirror in the Mud".
The South African leg of the Transmigrations Exhibition with a reworked installation piece titled:
'The Architecture of Air -11 September'
· 2003 Worked with composer Andi Spicer on the Auto-da-Fé contemporary classical music CD.
· 2003 Temporarily re-opened Gallery 111 as an experimental music venue
· 2004 Exhibited on group shows at Gordart Gallery, Melville "For the Record/Off the Record". Organised and performed in "Mayday Experimental music evening" at Gordart. Exhibited in Christmas Miniature show.
· 2005 January 16 - February 9: Exhibition "Forty Hand painted Pictures" at Gordart Gallery 
March11 - 18: "Earth & Sky" at the Gerard Sekoto Gallery, Alliance Francaise, Johannesburg
· 2006 "Nature Morte" a solo exhibition at the Gordart gallery in Melville, Johannesburg

I have always been inspired and motivated by the works of the Dutch Masters such as Rembrandt, Van Eyck, Pieter Claesz and numerous others. Other great influences have been the works of the Romantics and Neo-Classicists such as Turner and Constable, Ingres and David. My subject matter derives from religious art of the Middle Ages, Dutch genre painting and South African historical references with my painting style influenced by the aforementioned artists.
One of the challenges I face in my work is to reintegrate the subjects and symbols of previous eras into an artwork with 21st century sensibilities.
I have considered the problem of recycling symbols, which in their original Christian contexts were very powerful. There is no reason why subjects should be avoided or ignored simply because we live in a post-Christian era. By post-Christian, I mean that the Church is no longer the political, spiritual and social power it once was, with Western society’s structures having transferred largely into secular control and the blossoming of an overtly materialistic culture. The Church is also not the driving force behind the commissioning of major artworks as in the past with special reference to the Renaissance. Due to the secular nature of society it would appear that the need for religious spiritual art has practically disappeared.

The moral and spiritual meanings behind much religious art of past eras are often lost on contemporary audiences. What can these potent old symbols mean today and can they still be used effectively through a process of recycling? In my work I am presenting objects such as the fish, bread, cloth, various fruits and other symbols as I interpret them and juxtaposing them in different formats and combinations with a painting style I consider appropriate to the atmosphere and intensity I wish to express. In this way, with whatever memories of previous spiritual meaning that have remained in the viewer’s mind and with whatever new ideas are formed by the rehashing of these subjects, new meanings and interpretations may be made whether of a spiritual or a materialist nature. Or they may be viewed exactly as they are in a purely formal way. My work is a form of deconstruction of the paintings of antiquity and the overlaying of my own experiences and sensibilities on the subject.For me, skies are a particularly potent symbol, which is why I have a whole body of work devoted to them. They can range from a mood of serenity to one of apocalyptic terror and I use them to reinforce whatever atmosphere I need to convey in a painting or simply to paint them as visual experience.
I often use subjects from South African history such as the Anglo Boer War and the Zulu Wars and use these as backdrops in conjunction with other symbols.
I also invent new symbols with more contemporary meanings and arrange subjects in what may be considered inappropriate ways, always with the expectation of being able to extract new meanings and insights.
In my latest work, the bowl and pomegranate have become a metaphor for the human body and this has set the tone for my forthcoming exhibitions in 2008/9.