The recent show Joburg - An Exhibiton in which I exhibited along with fellow artist Andrew Sprawson, was a learning curve for me. All exhibitions are but this one in particular had an element I've never experienced - close collaboration.
I've had work in group shows before. In most group shows there'll be a grey enough area for all the works up to 'work' together in concept and theme: call the show Young South African Creatives and you can hang almost anything by anyone.
But what was really intriguing for me was the similarity in outlook, style and content between Andrew's and my works. This was all the more surprising to me, and perhaps to him, when we first saw each others' works; the similarities had us asking ourselves how we didn't create these works in collaboration - we'd never met before a coffee 2 months before the show to view his work.
My girlfriend Tallula and I are starting a small gallery and Andrew's work was to be our first show. I knew the content of his work was Johannesburg drawings in black and white and so I was hoping, if and only if there was a decent connection between the works, to exhibit with him. When we saw one another's works we were a bit stupefied: it really looked we'd been creating these works in tandem. Even our concept and idea behind what we were trying to convey had a close relationship albeit from a different approach in philosophy and medium.
Tallula was curating the show. It was really her baby, I was just one of the artists and the guy who was told what to design for the posters. Thank goodness for letting go a bit: I had originally wanted to show only my one series The Vacant Heart with Andrew's work. After listening (grudgingly [I'm an artist ok?]) to the curator - someone with more distance from both sets of works - I relented and put up work from other series and only those photogrpahs that worked together in a pair with Andrew's pieces. This is where the amazing similarities between Andrew's and my works became apparent.
This exhibition was a wonderful experience for me. I learnt a lot about letting go, trusting others and their opinions on my work, and the relationships (both socially and artistically) in showing work with another artist with similar vision.
People loved the show and this made me and Tallula very happy. Having the works up for a month allowed people to come back to visit and go at their leisure.
I hope I get the chance to work with Andrew again - his work is really outstanding.
