Obsessively exploring the beaches of northern KwaZulu-Natal as a child, I overlooked the limpets shells because they seemed common, rough and battered. The cowrie shells beckoned with their polished domes and gleaming teeth. I collected, categorized and even drew my prized collection.

And then, earlier this year while walking the wild Soetwater beach on the Cape Peninsula, limpet shells caught my attention. They suddenly seemed miraculous, a metaphor for coping with adversity. They are plastered to the rocks in places and patterns that seem random but are very specific, their shapes designed for the place they occupy in the inter-tidal zone. They fight territorial battles, tend their algae gardens by pruning and fertilising, and guillotine aggressors appendages by slamming their shells down on them. Kelp Limpets are shaped to fit on the stem of the Kelp and only one occupies each stem. If the Kelp holdfast breaks free in a storm, the limpet senses the change in pressure and parachutes down to the seabed to start searching for an unoccupied stem. South Africa has the highest biodiversity of limpets in the world.

 I took a bucket of (dead) limpet shells home to Mpumalanga and began working. Through drawing, I got to know these creatures intimately and they took on a sacredness, as can anything in the natural world if we pay attention. I kept drawing, moving from biological observation to a more playful space in which these wonderful shapes started to enjoy whimsical relationships and became drawings for thinking.

LANDSCAPE art exhibition brings together three artists fascinated with the coast to explore the unique environment of the Cape of Storms.

The Cape Peninsula juts into the Atlantic Ocean like a fishhook, catching an array of unique biodiversity due to its position at the confluence of the Agulhas and Benguela ocean systems. “Fairest of Capes” or Cabo Tormentoso - the Cape of Storms - is a unique landmass which has manifested a particular mythology and diversity along its slopes. This unique location is the theme for this exhibition of paintings, drawings and prints. LANDSCAPE ruminates on the particular ecology of the peninsula through materials and experiences gathered along its shores.

The artists have found unusual common ground in their individual engagements with the land of the Cape, aptly captured by the playful duality of the exhibition title LANDS(CAPE).

"Not being there, in the western Cape, highlights the differences between here and there. Descriptions come to mind: the Lowveld of Mpumalanga where I live is like a compost heap, verdant and saturated, with tumbling vegetation and trees that have never been tortured. This environment has seeped deep into my brain and is an intrinsic part of my visual vocabulary. The landscape of the Western Cape is a new world, experienced on holiday and with colours like a sweet shop. I am working on finding my vocabulary for this place that is shaped by wind and sea. The pencil studies of limpet shells are where I started. Called Drawings for Thinking, they began at the kitchen table after long walks on the beaches south of Kommetjie. As I drew, I began to think and understand more about the interface between land and sea. Later, in my studio in landlocked Mpumalanga, the search for meaning in the patterns and forms continues. It is taking time for my eyes to adjust and for my heart to follow."
Karin Daymond 2021

Believe it or not, there are people who have never noticed lichens. This is almost as fascinating as the lichens themselves. Lichens fly under the radar, blending into the background of life. Painting ‘portraits’ of these creatures feels like making the unseen, seen. This is essentially the work of an artist, whatever the subject.

I began painting lichens in 2017 and it has developed into an ongoing project. Wherever I go, I fall a little in love with lichens that I meet. Interestingly, they are usually a combination of fungi and bacteria, producing their own nutrients through photosynthesis. They don’t have roots and can grow in the most extreme of environments, on surfaces, ranging from granite rock to bark, from which they hang. They are simultaneously adaptable and particular. They thrive as pioneers in rapidly changing environments and are also some of the oldest creatures on earth. They are effective indicators of environmental health, particularly of air pollution.

The paintings are not intended as botanical studies, but as translations into paint, with allowances for favouritism and obsession. There is something primal about this life form. A friend said they made her think of the beginnings of life; another said that perhaps it is the fractal patterns that we find absorbing. Whatever it is, my viewers also develop personal attachments to these strange organisms, and the fact that they are obscure combinations of fungus and bacteria fades away. Perhaps it is the naming process that helps. This is the fun part. Somehow, each one has the right title and it is a matter of exploring my own mind until I find the one that fits. The successful titles are usually tongue-in-cheek with a hint of something more.

Karin Daymond
2019

A Sense of Place - Mapungubwe

Recently, I have wrapped myself in a light cocoon and been focussing on my own sense of place. Three very different landscapes feature in this exhibition of paintings and drawings.
Mapungubwe and the Kgalagadi are both trans-frontier parks, established precariously where bordering countries meet. These are extreme environments. The Kgalagadi is rugged, with an incongruent delicacy that is elusive during painting. The strong white light seems to dissolve the rocky ground and the vegetation. Painting the Kalahari challenged my familiar work processes; I struggled to make marks that were satisfyingly crisp, and eventually achieved some sense of place by building up a lattice of fine marks.

Mapungubwe seems closer to the sun than most places. Sun baked rocks punctuate the landscape, scoured by water courses that are now mostly dry. The red rocks are left to fend for themselves as the elements cause onion-skin weathering and the rocks exfoliate in layers when they heat up and cool down. Sitting in the twilight on the warm rocks anchored me to something deep under the surface of the earth.

Lichens have their own sense of place but of course it is a secretive world to which we are not always privy. They are found in almost every place on earth, but grow in specific niches, not because they want to grow there, but because nothing else can. They creep into landscapes incognito. Painting these curious creatures feels a bit like exposing them and so I call them ‘lichen portraits’ to reinstate some of their dignity. I would go as far as to say that I feel a kind of remorse in painting them and then sending them out into the world where they can’t fly under the radar any more. It’s silly, but lichens are my folly!

And then I am home, in the lush escarpment of Mpumalanga, sitting on my veranda and looking at the landscape that has been my anchor for twenty years. I know this place so intimately that I almost feel it instead of seeing it. This is dangerous territory when it comes to observational painting, because what you think you know may overwhelm what you see. Although my goal was not photographic realism, I wanted each of the twelve paintings (one for each month of the year) to be true to that exact place and the season. This was an interesting process because the location of my veranda stays constant, and yet each painting evokes a different feeling; intense observation coming full circle in the distillation of the marks and colours into something specific, yet familiar. Playfully, and with great joy, working on this exhibition has resulted in my current mantra: the more specific a landscape painting, the more universal the interpretation and meaning.

The seed of the Scatterlings paintings grew from a conversation with a Zimbabwean man, Leslie. He spoke in vivid detail about his experiences as a migrant worker, and his relationship with home. He has been home annually for ten years, yet the phrase he kept using was “I have a home”.

Leslie’s references to home were concrete and practical. He spoke of drought and exchange rates, school shoes and roads. In 2010, when life on a subsistence farm became unsustainable, he went into the forest and harvested Mukwa trees (known in South Africa as Kiaat) and made bowls from the wood. He travelled to Cape Town to try to sell them, but his passport and the bowls were stolen. To make the paintings, I needed a vehicle for this idea, something that took the concept beyond border posts and identity documents. The flying seeds are about transcending borders, whatever they may be.

Pterocarpus Angolensis, the distinctive tree that produces these entrancing “wing fruit” (from the Latin) is native to Southern Africa. It is under threat because the prized hardwood is durable, easy to polish and resistant to termites. Interestingly, it is used to make the Mbira because it produces a rich, resonant sound.
Scatterlings I has a warm sky, dry seeds and a sliver of distant forest. In Scatterlings II, the seeds are green and there is the promise of rain, a different season and a different feeling but with the same sense of these beings floating in vast space. They move with the wind and are weightless, yet solid. Deliberately, the paintings do not have a single focus because I want the viewer to consider each seed individually, even though in ‘real’ life they are identical.

Karin Daymond
2019