EXHIBITION
 

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Induku Entle Ikhiwa Ezizweni

L'éclat des ailleurs

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Aviwe Plaatjie, Willow Evann

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5 February - 5 March 2022

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31 PROJECT is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Induku entle ikhiwa ezizweni, L'éclat des ailleurs, with artists Aviwe Plaatjie and Willow Evann. 

 

The paintings of Aviwe Plaatjie, a South African artist based in Cape town, are presented for the first time in France by 31 PROJECT. 

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These paintings will dialogue with the sculptures of Willow Evann, visual artist, but also photographer and dancer.  Student of the Kourtrajmé school, exhibited at the Centquatre in 2020, the gallery offers him his first duo show. 

 

A conversation between two artists, born of their common research around the representation of the black figure: by the community portrait for Aviwe Plaatjie, by the questioning of the material, the color and the digital for Willow Evann. 

 

"Induku entle ikhiwa ezizweni" is a Xhosa proverb that celebrates the mixing of cultures, and evokes the beauty of the distant, of that which is created outside our native territories. 

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From different continental perspectives, each of the two artists questions the opening of our eyes to the poetry of the world and tries to describe these "shards" that lead us to new territories. A splinter can be the fragment of a body that is broken, just like the violent noise of a material that breaks, but it is also this bright light that sparkles and catches the eye towards other horizons.

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BIOGRAPHIES

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Aviwe Plaatjie was born in 1988, lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.

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Painter and printmaker, he describes himself as a simple observer of his community, capturing his family, friends and neighbours in their everyday environment. He paints those intimate moments such as a conversation between two friends, a furtive pause on a staircase, the pleasure of leafing through a magazine or a solitary daydream staring out the window.

 

Aviwe Plaatjie offers a peaceful vision of the inhabitants of Khayelitsha township where he lives. Time is suspended in his paintings, allowing for contemplation and attention. The artist deploys elaborate backgrounds around his characters and pays particular attention to the details of domestic interiors, fabrics and textures. The references to music, clothing, film and literature are multiple, depicting a proud and uninhibited generation with globalized influences. 

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Self-taught, he was introduced to drawing as a child by his mother. In 2010, he joined the Good Hope Arts Studios collective where he developed his practice. He also participates in the VANSA mentoring program where he learns printmaking techniques. Aviwe Plaatjie is a frequent visitor to the Cape Town art scene and participates in local exhibitions and workshops with various collectives while continuing to work in the studio.

 

In 2020 he was spotted by the Ebony / Curated gallery which organised his first solo show and presented him in London at the 1-54 fair. In 2021, he was exhibited by 31 PROJECT at Artissima in Turin and this year in the gallery's space in Paris. 

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Willow Evann was born in 1985, he lives and works in Ile-de-France.

 

Multi-talented artist with multiple influences, Willow Evann is a visual artist, dancer and photographer. Coming from a housing estate in Bondy and originally from Ivory Coast, Willow Evann in his artistic practice, works on his origins and his identity stemming from the African and French colonial history. As a dancer, he naturally places the body at the heart of his research and questions the construction of the image and social status of black people in Western societies. 

 

Very early on the artist expressed the need to express himself through dance. Lulled as a child by the reggae his father listened to, he has been immersed in the Hip Hop culture since the age of 10. He then turned to Locking (a dance born in 1970 on the West Coast of the United States) and is considered today as an essential reference of this movement. At the same time, he developed his career as a photographer and focused his practice on capturing gesture and choreographic movement. 

In 2019, he joins the Kourtrajmé school where he experiments and develops his visual language.

 

In 2020, he participates in the collective exhibition curated by the artist JR at the Centquatre and then in the Parcours Saint-Germain with a photographic installation in the public space. In 2022, 31 PROJECT exhibits his work in a duo show in its Parisian gallery.