Maria Lebedeva is currently exhibiting at Wolves. Her work is fine and delicate and all watercolours and ink. I hope my photos do them justice because you really have to see these little pieces of painted craftsmanship in real life to appreciate just how wonderful they are. Her stuff will be up until the end of the month if you are keen to come have a look…
I have definitely blogged about South African Illustrator Maria Lebedeva before because she makes the most precious little drawings of animals and people, fruit and more and I think her work is just magic.
Maria’s paintings and drawings are so delicate and whimsical and every time she has a showing I feel the need to buy half the exhibition! Her new exhibition at Wolves has just gone up and comprises of a series of small delicate pieces, some original and some prints. It really is worth coming in to see them in person, there are some lovely things happening and I almost guarantee that you’ll leave with more than one and the best part is that once you have bought a print you can go home with it immediately.
Her prints start at about R180 (which is amazing) and her originals go up to R500. Her show is up until the end of the month but do try to get there as soon as you can to avoid disappointment.
Maria is also working on a second storybook, which I can’t wait to buy, she also has a series of greeting cards that she has designed that are available at Exclusive Books under a label called Stuff From Africa.
A couple of months ago Maria Lebedeva exhibited at Wolves and these are some of the beautiful hand drawn originals that Shane and I snapped up.
You know one of the best things about owning Wolvies is that we get first dibs on all the beautiful art that passes through the shop. Our art collection is growing so nicely and I’m hoping that one day we’ll have one of the biggest private local collections in the country, which will be even more awesome when half of these kids become famous. Whoo.
The project that I am about to share with you guys is one that I’m extremely proud of because a number of people have put a lot of love, effort and emotion into it. I’m also so thankful that I got to be a part of something that celebrates amazingly strong women who have taught me to appreciate life a little more, what with all it’s pitfalls, highs and lows.
My friends Adi Koen, Nicola Cooper and I got together a few months ago to create and shoot a series made up of sixteen phenomenal women (including Nicola) who have survived really traumatic and in some cases life-threatening events and now proudly wear the scars that represent those times in their lives as badges of honour.
We met with everyone to hear and document their stories and to photograph them and their scars, creating portraits and tributes that celebrate their journeys and triumphs. After we took their photos we then sent them to fourteen of South Africa’s most talented illustrators and artists and asked them to create a unique armour out of lines, paint and forms, cladding them in one-of-kind items of clothing designed specifically for them.
Cupcake Richard Cake Shop is a tiny online, vegan & gluten free, cake shop, based in Cape Town, who love love tigers (all cats really) and are really passionate about tiger conservation. They have launched a Postcard Project, based on the WWF project, for rangers who are dedicating their lives to saving these awesome animals. They wanted to do something nice for them, so they got five of South Africa’s amazingly talented artists to each supply them with work to create a set of tiger inspired postcards. The following artists were kind enough to participate: Kirsten Beets, Maria Lebedeva, Wonder Meyer, Elsabe Milandri, Andrew Sutherland.