Download - Stefan Krynauw - Portrait of a Painter
STEFANKRYNAUWPortrait of a Painter
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE & PRICELIST
The Newtown37 Quinn StreetNewtownJohannesburg
T +27 (0)72 6580 762C +27 (0)72 3835 [email protected]
STEFANKRYNAUWPortrait of a Painter
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE & PRICELIST
The Newtown37 Quinn StreetNewtownJohannesburg
T +27 (0)72 6580 762C +27 (0)72 3835 [email protected]
Portraiture is a perennial
tradition in the arts, and
possibly the most enduring
in the history of painting. The
intimate conversation that a
portrait has with its viewer
transmits the artist’s acumen and
perception in gauging his subject,
and so his sense of individuality. A
portrait connects the viewer to the
emotional crux of what it means
to be human; the character of the
artist mediated through the canvas
expressing the intrinsic within our-
selves. The means of portraiture
in culling the concept of identity
from various points of entry and
departure is at once a universal,
biographical account of humankind
and a singular, autobiographical
performance on the part of the
artist. A portrait is a process of
becoming in itself.
Portrait of a Painter is an exhibition
that paints a ubiquitous picture
of Stefan Krynauw, a young artist
at the inception of his career,
accompanied by the assurance
of his patron-mentor, Roelof van
Wyk, whom is also an artist,
a photographer intuitively
documenting the act of becoming in
proximity to portraiture. It is not
often that the portrait is inverted,
becoming self-reflexive, allowing
one to see the burgeoning artist
as a developing portrait, but van
Wyk attempts to do so by including
Krynauw into his Young Afrikaner’s
series, which documents the
reclamation of the Afrikaner identity
by the young Afrikaner individual and
focuses on a massive shift from a state
owned and sanctioned national identity
during Apartheid, to a self-determined,
Portrait of a Painter: narrative, plural and personal
identity, steeped in culture. Van
Wyk’s portrait of the young painter
channels Krynauw’s still raw
artistic consciousness, integrating
it into a greater cultural chimera.
Krynauw in turn transfigures
this rawness into paint and onto
the canvas, where the underlying
code of van Wyk’s portraits export
to Krynauw’s act of becoming,
concretized as abstracts.
Krynuaw’s undertaking as a
painter is mediated by received
images dispatched to the painted
canvas. Van Wyk documents
Krynauw as a portrait through
a type of genealogical process,
knitting two seemingly divorced
artistic oeuvres together. With
this lattice a prospective lineage
unfurls, a confluence between an
unknown artist and his established
mentor. The paterfamilias path
that the two of them trod together
establishes their relationship. The
two are analogous; an analogy that
subsidizes the portrait, helping it to
evolve in an extended loop, a seesaw
of antecedents transpiring the
tradition of portraiture. Although
seemingly abstract, all Krynuaw’s
paintings are rendered portraits
through this relationship and his
own process of becoming.
Krynauw was born in Somerset
East in 1989. He has a background
in acting, and studied drama at
Stellenbosch University, where
he holds a Bachelor’s Degree.
In 2010 Krynauw uprooted
himself, discarding his thespian
past in a circuitous resolution
to become a painter. With the
patronage of van Wyk, Krynauw’s
resolution required only twelve
months to complete, making the
documentation of his burgeoning
oeuvre a pivotal act of portraiture;
a performance unfolding as a body
of work, thematically drifting into
other bodies of work, notably van
Wyk’s Young Afrikaner’s.
In terms of descent and lineage
Krynauw and van Wyk are jointed,
caught-up in the fibers of each
other’s work and heritage. Van Wyk
has the implicit role of the classical
patriarch, with portraiture as the
anchor, manifested in a Hellenistic
atavism, evidenced by his portrait
of Krynauw as a Young Afrikaner.
Within the context of Portrait of
a Painter, van Wyk’s photograph
of Krynauw is as primary as an
abstract to a book.
Van Wyk’s Young Afrikaner’s
series investigates the inside-out
rootedness of a reterritorialized
language; commonly known as
‘Die Taal’ (the Afrikaner dialect),
which was seen as a landscape in
itself, founding a nation, practically
annexed by the Apartheid state.
Van Wyk takes this foundation and
proves how ‘Die Taal’ is finding
virulent new offshoots in post-
Apartheid South Africa, where
the paradox of ownership and
territory, a sense of identity and
cultural commonality all coalesce to
form a complex and much needed
narrative, artifacts to the linguistic
act of disownment and reclamation.
Krynauw’s background in acting
has allowed him to measure
the importance of performance
in painting. Portraiture and
performance can be seen as
auxiliaries in this sense. In finding
a technique and conceiving a
personal style Krynauw bides his
detachment to his facsimiled, highly
mediated sources onto the canvas.
His approach is that of galvanizing
the source material onto large-
scale canvases, blazoning them
into intensely gestural abstracts,
imbuing dark hues against bold,
saturated and littered brushstrokes.
Krynauw’s poached images from
the media populate his studio like
debris after a natural catastrophe;
paint is everywhere. This residue is
exploited by Krynauw, taking the
violence of his mediated material,
translating it into a source of
original meaning; a portrait.
Krynauw’s paintings display a
Baroque-like antithetic, also palpable
in van Wyk’s Young Afrikaner’s,
counterpoised by expressionist and
abstract tendencies. He begins each
painting as a series of irresolute
experiments and improvisations,
applied directly to the canvas.
Slowly, engendered by an intuitive
navigation of the black holes
inherent to the canvas, Krynauw’s
marks and gestures develop into
abstract masses, plateaus, fields and
forms. A portrait is composed from
various unfinished compromises
that construct the bedrock of his
painterly preparations. From this
point, Krynauw focuses on the
continuous ebb of action, isolation,
restraint, and improvisation. The
consequence of this ebb and flow
for Krynauw is self-exploration
and self-knowledge, with the
waste matter of the studio, and the
painting itself in essence becoming
residuum. Van Wyk chronicles this
residuum, belaboring the studio
and its contents, embodied in the
finished painting. In turn, van
Wyk reconstitutes the photographic
material from ground zero into a
prostheticized photographic series,
ultimately creating a dual-layered,
collaborative body of work.
Written by Shane de Lange.
Portrait of Stefan Krynauw by Roelof van Wyk , 2010.
PLATES
Untitled #2
Oil on canvas, painted 2011.1100mm x 870mm (canvas size)
Price:R9,800 (excl. Vat and framing)*
Untitled #1
Oil on canvas, painted 2011.1100mm x 870mm (canvas size)
Price:R9,800 (excl. Vat and framing)*
Untitled #3
Oil on canvas, painted 2011.1100mm x 870mm (canvas size)
Price:Sold.
Untitled #4
Oil on canvas, painted 2011.2400mm x 1800mm (canvas size)
Price:R16,800 (excl. Vat and framing).
Untitled #5
Oil on canvas, painted 2011.2400mm x 1800mm (canvas size)
Price:Sold.
Untitled #6
Oil on canvas, painted 2011.2400mm x 1800mm (canvas size)
Price:R16,800 (excl. Vat and framing)*
Untitled #7
Oil on canvas, painted 2011.2400mm x 1800mm (canvas size)
Price:R16,800 (excl. Vat and framing)*
Untitled #8
Oil on canvas, painted 2011.1100mm x 870mm (canvas size)
Price:Sold.
Untitled #9
Oil on canvas, painted 2011.1100mm x 870mm (canvas size)
Price:Sold.
Untitled #10
Oil on canvas, painted 2011.1100mm x 870mm (canvas size)
Price:R9,800 (excl. Vat and framing)*
Untitled #11
Oil on canvas, painted 2011.1100mm x 870mm (canvas size)
Price:Sold.
Untitled #12
Oil on canvas, painted 2011.1100mm x 870mm (canvas size)
Price:R9,800 (excl. Vat and framing)*
Untitled #13
Oil on canvas, painted 2011.2400mm x 1800mm (canvas size)
Price:Sold.
Untitled #14
Oil on canvas, painted 2011.2400mm x 1800 (canvas size)
Price:R16,800 (excl. Vat and framing)*
Untitled #15 by Roelof van Wyk
Source material documentation, 2011.2100mm x 900mm (table size).Photograph size variable.
Edition 1/3.
Price:R1,250 each (excl. Vat and framing)*
Untitled #16 by Roelof van Wyk
Source material documentation, 2011.2100mm x 900mm (table size).Photograph size variable.
Edition 1/3.
Price:R1,250 each (excl. Vat and framing)*
(Installation detail) by Roelof van WykSource material documentation, 2011.Photograph size variable.
Edition 1/3.
Price:R1,250 each (excl. Vat and framing)*
(Installation detail) by Roelof van WykSource material documentation, 2011.Photograph size variable.
Edition 1/3.
Price:R1,250 each (excl. Vat and framing)*
The Newtown37 Quinn StreetNewtownJohannesburg
T +27 (0)72 6580 762C +27 (0)72 3835 [email protected]