Conrad Botes

I went into the Stevenson Gallery the other day, to see the Conrad Botes’s exhibition called Zombie Babylon that is up at the moment. It’s made up of a whole lot of small paintings that tell a very dark tale, 2 very interesting and quite scary sculptures and a series of large very vibrant paintings of iconic images. It’s a great show and it’s so much better in person than it is in photographs, so if you have some free time go on by, closes after the 15th of December, so hurry.

– For this exhibition Botes continues his recent series of paintings on canvas while also showing his distinctive reverse-glass paintings, sculptures and drawings. The paintings on this show have evolved from the religious imagery he presented at his last exhibition at the gallery in Cape Town. He has continued to explore repetition, the effect of which is to make sacred images, especially, more overtly consumable. Over the past few months he has also been fascinated by the optical effects of colour, and has created paintings that pulsate with a psychedelic intensity. The result is an unlikely and unexpected presentation of iconic images. Another series of paintings features horrifying imagery, yet rendered in beautiful and optical colours that simultaneously seduce and repulse, reminding us of how our perceptions are influenced by colour.