Hanneke Benade

Hanneke Benade has an enduring quietness about her. Like a clear pool in a hidden mountain kloof she calmly and quietly reflects 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 of a young woman. 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.

New editions from The Artists' Press

Artists from A to L

Artists from M to X

Portraits

I was looking at Beau Brummell's "Neckclothitania" AKA 'one of the Cloth' published in 1818 with pages of illustrations on the complicated sets of knots and bows  of the cravat that Brummell favored. This nineteenth-century necktie was  Brummell's most lasting and mysterious invention.

“Once tied, the necktie should never be altered in the hope of improving its appearance; if it is ill-tied, one must start again with a fresh cravat. What the wearer is after is a curious mean between skill and pure chance. The tying of a cravat involves the rigorous removal of human agency from the final appearance of the fabric: the knot is intentional, but the folds are entirely fortuitous.” Beau Brummell

I recently dressed-up  a model with a cravat around the neck and used the reference for the portrait 'Tied in a bow'. The plain linen 'neck cloth' created a soft bow at the front.
 

The work 'No more bobby pins' is just a simple portrait of a girl with short hair.The portrait started out as a girl's  with a long braid.The composition didn't work out with the braid so I decided to 'cut her hair' and it looked better thereafter.Hair often signifies a change beyond the physical act of cutting off one's tresses. Hair is still seen as a woman's 'Crown and Glory' and by cutting it she somehow looses her sexual potency. A bobby pin is a type of hairpin or clip used in coiffure to hold hair in place.

'Gauze' and 'Gaze'  can work as a diptych as well as on their own. I found an interesting play of words with the titles, while the two works communicate with each other.The English word ' gauze'  referring to the gauze net skirt the woman is wearing, comes from the synonymous French word 'gaze', like the young man directing his gaze towards the woman. Hanneke Benade 2011

Stapeliae - lithographs

Stapeliae have always fascinated me, but a friends shared enthusiasm for the plants led me to do this series of three prints of stapelia, working from my own reference material of stapelia in flower. I do not regard myself as a botanical illustrator in anyway, nor is my knowledge of plants at all extensive.
I decided that my usual subject matter could lend itself to some change, to portray this glorious indigenous carrion plant in its many varied forms was my objective.
Hanneke Benade, 2010

Six Steps- lithographs

"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."Hanneke Benade 2006

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!

Please note that the prints are available as single prints at R 3 050 each or else can be bought as a full set for R 15 750 (there is only one complete set left - Aug 2010)

Hand-coloured lithographs