Hanneke Benade

Hanneke Benade has an enduring quietness about her. Like a clear pool in a hidden mountain kloof she carefully and quietly relects the world around her. Her observations of the people that share her world are usually exquisitely rendered in pastel, which she has translated into print with these sublime images. Her application of the drawing materials on the plates has resulted in an almost powdery feeling that one gets from chalk pastels. Hanneke Benade's figures seem contained and content but on closer examination reveal an underlying tautness and tension. She offers little in the way of interpretation and as a viewer one is forced to examine the images in terms of ones own references. Her work is particularly female, confident and at times subversive.

Artists statement"

"The idea of creating images with a narrative or sequence or story board interests me. I like the repetition of images. Capturing movement in various stages like Eadweard Muybridge's photographic studies of people and animals in motion or those drawings we made as children in the bottom corners of our textbooks of tiny stick people running, have always fascinated me. Breaking down the simple action of someone climbing up and down a chair, into 6 stages/steps, looks awkward, because we then see how the body has to turns and twists into positions we don't usually see."

Eadweard Muybridge photographed men, women and children in the late 1800's in sequences that were aimed at providing artists with references as to how the human body moves through space when performing everyday tasks such as walking down stairs, carrying a bucket etc. His work is still in print and continues to be used as a reference work by artists throughout the world. Hanneke Benade has taken his idea and updated it (the clothing) but has remained true the essence of Muybridge's intentions. In these prints it is as if we are looking into someone's private world, watching the young woman climb onto and then off the chair. The lack of anecdotal information forces us to concentrate on the shifts in material and muscle and with the slight changes in pose the images almost become abstract.

The two hand coloured prints that she has done are of the flowers and fruit of two of the trees that grow outside the Artists' Press studio in White River. The African Flame tree is indigenous to East Africa and when it flowers the landscape is set alight by the colours that it burns into the veld. The Lowveld Chestnut is indigenous to Mpumalanga and graces the granite koppies that tumble towards Mozambique. The flowers of the tree are small and yellow but it is the fruit that is magnificent. The spiky shell opens up to reveal its secret of velvety black seeds. Benade has captured the essence of these two trees!

Hanneke Benade was born in Tshwane in 1972. She graduated from the University of Pretoria with a Fine Arts degree in 1993. She has held a number of solo exhibitions in Gauteng and the Western Cape. She has also participated in numerous group shows throughout South Africa and in Europe and Egypt. Awards include: 2003: theBrett Kebble Art Award 2003 - Category Painting and Mixed Media.

1999:Shared 3rd Prize, Kempton Park/Tembisa Fine Arts Award.1998:Merit Prize Winner, Volkskas Atelier Award.1996:Merit Prize Winner, Volkskas Atelier Award.1995:Shared 3rd Prize, Kempton Park/Tembisa Fine Arts Award.1993:Judges Prize (Christopher Till), Sasol New Signatures Competition.

In 1999/2000 she spent three months at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France.

Hanneke Benade's work can be found in many private collections and in the following public ones:

British American Tobacco Company, Stellenbosch, University of Pretoria, Telkom, Sasol, Gauteng Provincial Government, Sanlam, Pretoria Art Museum, University of the Free State - Johannes Stegmann Gallery, ABSA Art CollectionSouth African Breweries,Hollard House andSpier Wine Estate Stellenbosch

In 1994-2002 Hanneke Bernade was aPart-time Lecturer in Fine Arts, University of Pretoria and a Guest Lecturer at Pretoria Technikon and at University of the Orange Free State

New editions from ArtPrintSA

Look at prints by other artists

Article on Hanneke Benade in SA Art Times (pg 6)

Six Steps- lithographs 2006

Hand-coloured lithographs 2006