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]

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



Untitled #3


Price:Sold.

Untitled #4


Price:R16,800 (excl. Vat and framing).

Untitled #5


Price:Sold.

Untitled #6



Untitled #7



Untitled #8


Price:Sold.

Untitled #9


Price:Sold.

Untitled #10



Untitled #11


Price:Sold.

Untitled #12



Untitled #13


Price:Sold.

Untitled #14

Oil on canvas, painted 2011.2400mm x 1800 (canvas size)


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.


(Installation detail) by Roelof van WykSource material documentation, 2011.Photograph size variable.

Edition 1/3.


The Newtown37 Quinn StreetNewtownJohannesburg

T +27 (0)72 6580 762C +27 (0)72 3835 [email protected]

stefan krynauw - portrait of a painter

Documents

developing portrait

young artist

van wyk documents krynauw

unknown artist

burgeoning artist

afrikaner identity

roelof van wyk

personal identity