Visual Art 
Tussen Orde en Avontuur/ Between Order and Adventure is an exhibition of contemporary artworks in diverse media - ranging from oil paintings to typewriters; sculptures to mouthwash…
Also on show, are 250 blocks from the Creative Block, a project that is now in its fifth year. This project of Jeanetta Blignaut from Coeo Art Collaborative, supports artists from across South Africa and provides an excellent opportunity to start your own collection (for more information, click on Creative Block in column to the right ►).
The Creative Block is an inspirational outlet for some of South Africa’s established contemporary artists, as well as a platform for fresh local talent. The Creative Blocks are small (18cm by 18cm by 2.2cm) artworks, each original and unique yet affordable.
Creative Block collectors are invited to become part of the creative process by grouping a number of artworks together. The collector’s choices become vital to the visual impact of each art piece. Providing there is no damage to the block, a collector can exchange a Creative Block at any time. The e-commerce website provides the opportunity to see more Creative Blocks
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Lynette Bester completed a Masters Degree in Fine Art (Cum Laude) at the University of Stellenbosch, 2002, majoring in sculpture under the tuition of Alan Alborough. In 2006 Bester was a double finalist for the SASOL New Signatures with HEART: DIMENSIONS VARIABLE and UNTITLED (Violin). Bester participated in a two-man show, WITHOUT MASTER at the AVA in January 2007, for which she exhibited LE MARTEAU SANS MAITRE ( The Hammer Without Master), which was selected as a Top Ten Finalist for the ABSA ATELIER of that year. She exhibits regularly in group exhibitions and has had two solo exhibitions, WHOLES CUT OUT 2002, The Cold Room, Cape Town and HEART: DIMENSIONS VARIABLE, 2005, at Blank Projects, Bo Kaap, Cape Town. In December 2005 she took part in the two week THUPELO workshop in Cape Town and in February 2008 participated in the DWAYER International Visual Arts Workshop for Woman in Alexandria, Egypt. Currently she is working towards her next solo exhibition and an international collaborative project. Lynette Bester is the Head of Department and lecturer in Theory and mixed media design at The Ruth Prowse School of Art, Woodstock. She has been a committee member and convener of the Selection Committee at AVA since 2004 and was a founding member of the Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA) from 2003-5.
“In this work, Benchmark, I literally found a public park bench imbued with marks made by sitters over a period of years. The planks were removed from the bench, rolled up with ink and printed as a wood cut, revealing layers of text, and striations in the aging wood. Benchmark reveals the memory of those who sat on it and made their mark, but also the memory of the object. Benchmark as a print is a record of time and people. However, a benchmark also alludes to a possible future.”
Sit here, and think which way, is a line from a poem, To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvel and refers to the found object of the bench placed in relation to the print. The bench was found in a public park in which Bester played as a child. For the purpose of making the print for Benchmark the planks had to be removed without causing alarm and replaced with new planks. The bench as art object now bares traces of its own existence as a public bench, as well as that of being rolled up with ink and printed. The title: Sit here, and think which way, is an invitation and a command, taking the emphasis off the object and back to the viewer as participator.
HEART: Dimenstions Variable is a volumetric puzzle, constructed by assembling flat puzzle pieces to create a complete three-dimensional object constructed on an ‘x’, ’y’ and ‘z’ axis. The pieces are cut from 16 mm super-wood at specific angles that interlock to create the three dimensional shape. The approach is simultaneously mathematical as engaging with the art-making/viewing process. It explores ways in which the object can be assembled, re-assembled and configured in different spaces.
Tyrrel Thaysen was born in Knysna and devoted all his free time to creating art. He studied at the Michaelis school of Fine Art (1990- 1993) and passed with a first class diploma in sculpture. He was awarded the Montagu White Bursary for overseas study (1995). In the late nineties he worked at the District Six Museum.
Thaysen was artist-in-residence at the Greatmore Art Studios in Woodstock from 2004-2006. In 2004 and 2005 he was selected as finalist in the Brett Kebble Art Awards in three different categories and in 2005 he was awarded the Triangle Arts Residency at the Vermont Studio Centre (United States).
He has participated in numerous group shows both nationally and internationally and had two solo exhibitions at the Association for Visual Arts in Cape Town. He is currently working as visual artist from his home in Summergreens.
Xolile Williams, the maker of angels, left school in the Transkei at the end of grade 8, because his mother could no longer afford the school fees. He came to Cape Town at the age of 20 to look for work. In 1994 he started boxing professionally as well as selling fruit to earn a bit of money after losing his job. Whilst selling fruit, a man saw his wooden sculptures and introduced him to Diane Cussons from DC Art who encouraged him to become a full-time artist. 
Jonathan Munnik studied Fine Arts at Technikon,Pretoria, School of Arts (1998-2000). While studying, he was asked to direct a creative team to create the interior scheme of Ceasars Palace, Johannesburg. In 1999 he exhibited at the Pretoria Art Museum as part of the New Signatures Art Competition.
Over the past 5 years, Munnik worked with Architects and Property Developers in designing mall layouts and signage redesign, interior and exterior artistic landscaping. He also created a substantial number of sculptures and artistic prints commissioned for personal and commercial residences.
There are three works on exhibit, two of these are dolomite sculptures from the series I am… (whatever you want me to be... )
The third is Untitled, a figurative (resin and fibre glass) sculpture of a little boy playing with his fathers stuff, and feeling on top of the world: nothing can stop him !
Nomthunzi Mashalaba completed her degree in Fine Art at the Tswane University of Technology in 2006. She has participated in numerous group shows in South Africa, as well as an international workshop in Madagascar and a residency at Greatmore Studios in Cape Town. She collaborated with Hollard Insurance in the Waste At Work project that resulted in an exihbition at Hollard's Head Quarters in Johannesburg, as well as a exhibition at Spier in Stellenbosch. In 2007 she held her first solo exhibition at blank projects in Cape Town.
"My interest is in creating works that present themselves to the viewer as intricate networks of ideas, formulating everyday experiences as chronicles, personal or otherwise..."
Warren Lewis is 26 years old and works from Cape Town, South Africa.
Wonder Marthinus was born in Knysna, lives and works in Cape Town. And has shown extensively in South Africa as well as in Germany. He has had four solo exhibitions in South Africa, and one abroad. Marthinus had been an artist-in-residence at Greatmore Studios for five years, and currently works from the Bijou Art Studios in Observatory, Cape Town.
Walking Out on a Painting in the Green Room was inspired by meetings with the German artist Karlheinz Scherer - whom Marthinus met in Germany. Karlheinz Scherer is the nephew of the late Hermann Scherer - an artist who worked in sculpture, painting and woodcarving. After the death of his uncle, Karlheinz inherited two houses as well as a collection of artworks by Hermann and his colleagues. Karlheinz reconstructed these architectural spaces, combining furniture from various eras and unconventionally painting only parts of walls in vibrant colours. Marthinus then re-interpreted these transformed spaces (Karlheinz’s assemblages), and translated them into new constructions: that of painted spaces on canvas.
(below) "...Stories around religion and the church have always intrigued me. This work I started whilst travelling through Germany,visiting cathedrals and churches. I liked the time of the middle-ages and how stories where told then. I collected images from various of these cathedrals and churches. Back in my studio I sifted through my findings, mixed-up all the information, and began to paint..confessions, confessions..."
Jeanne Hoffman Legrand is a Cape Town based artist who works mostly in the media of drawing, lithography and installation. Her work fuses the conceptual and formal concerns of drawing with found materials in three-dimensional constructions. She has participated in a number of two-person and group exhibitions in South Africa and internationally as well as two solo exhibitions in Cape Town. To date, she has attended artists' residencies in Belgium and in Finland.
Hoffman Legrand has worked in the field of arts education, in various capacities, for the past seven years. These include teaching at secondary and tertiary level, as well as co-ordinating and facilitating various environmental education community projects. Hoffman has recently completed a Masters degree in Visual Arts at the University of Stellenbosch, near Cape Town, where she is employed as part-time lecturer in drawing.
From: 'strange things travel with you'
From: 'strange things travel with you'
Seth Harper was born in Mthatha in 1977. In 1988 he moved to East London where he attended classes at the Belgravia Art School from 1993-1995. He matriculated in 1995 from De Grens High School and studied fashion design at the Cape Technikon (now CPUT) from 1997-1998. In 1998 he was selected a finalist in the Smirnoff Fashion Awards. Around the same time, he started dabbling in street art, tagging around the Mother City and painting the infamous entrance door on a concrete wall along the N2. 
He started to create his signature fabric characters around this time, exhibiting in collaboration other artists as well as in group shows at the Association for Visual Arts and art events such as YDETAG and YDESIRE. His figurines have also been incorporated in displays for a clothing store (2002-2003).
And so we thought: "Let's just go there…!” is a mixed media installation. The characters are embarking on an adventure: a climbing adventure. They are rock climbing to the summit of the monumental Artscape Theatre foyer. Says Harper: "Is it always necessary to bring order to an adventure? Ironically, the figure at the top is the one without rope and it is the one with the brightest rope that is losing his grip; falling...could it be that he had lost his grip because he was overtly careful?"
Adrienne van Eeden is a Cape Town based artist and writer. She received her Masters Degree in Fine Art (cum laude) from the University of Stellenbosch in 2005 and has lectured at a number of tertiary institutions. Adrienne also works as a freelance art critic for Die Burger.
Her art often involves the re-appropriation and modification of common objects through time-consuming processes. These processes are based on systematic repetition, as well as on the deliberate use of low-tech equipment and techniques traditionally classified under “craft”.
The Wallflower Series consist of long pieces of wallpaper with intricate floral patterns from which all the flowers and leaves have been removed. This process involves perforating the surface around images with a needle and then tearing each object out by hand to reveal imperfect, fragile and skeleton-like remains. The title references not only the literal art object, but also the colloquial use of the term.
From The Wallflower series
Firm Adult Easy Slide juxtaposes the comfort provided by seemingly trivial daily routines with the often banal and futile nature thereof. The work relies on the repetition of virtually identical units to suggest attempts at perfection and control.
