Exhibition puts the spotlight on women |07 January 2012

Featuring paintings by local artists George Camille and Martin Kennedy alongside the sculptures of Bosnian Mirza Moric, the exhibition is the first show to be organised by the recently formed Arterial Seychelles Network.

Camille has returned to his roots, selecting four life drawings from a portfolio created in his studio during the past month. Camille presents his nude studies of women in a rich and tightly cropped environment, fertile and teeming with life.

Other works of George Camille in the exhibition explore the fusion of female and natural forms, such as fish, geckos and leaves pushed into copper. Such works, including ‘Tree of life’, ‘Mermaid’ and ‘One on a wave’, underline the energy of procreation and continuity – the very essence of us.

Kennedy is showing a series of prints which soften and re-interpret the female form. Each image is produced in a limited edition of five. Alongside them can be found recent media

 works on canvas and board.
 
Kennedy calls his style a mixture of acrylic and figurative – depicting the woman as young and vibrant and having children, before getting old and frail – part of the female life cycle.

Fragmented transfer images of family photographs taken in the 1950s, such as “Mother and me”, sit alongside block and line painting. Both occupy abstract landscapes, and in most of the works, coloured rain falls around the principal character, invariably the artist’s mother, now 87 years old.

Mirza Moric hails from Bosnia and sculpts in marble, stone, bronze and the granite of Seychelles.

Although he is no stranger to Seychelles, this is his first show here, giving us the opportunity to appreciate his delicate, yet voluptuous sculptures which invite a tacit as well as a visual exploration. There is the ‘Luscious woman’ and ‘Sleeping venus’, showing the curves of the female body, while ‘Young woman with a parrot’ is carved on Indian green marble.

Mirza has also carved the figure of a woman on a big granite boulder on La Digue. He is particularly proud of the red granite found in abundance on Praslin.

A sculpture of international acclaim, Mirza has also carved statues in the gardens of Notre Dame de Paris in France.

“Giving life to matter” has always been the mission of sculptures. But, Mirza goes further, by breathing an energy that characterises all his works. They are often very impressive because of their huge size.

 He claims that his art expresses the multiple facets of his natal land Bosnia, marked by successive civilisations.

J.L.