ROBERT SLINGSBY

 

Robert Slingsby comes from an old Yorkshire family renowned for its involvement with the world famous Slingsby glider which dates back to pre Second World War aviation. Perhaps Robert inherited this physic energy which led him on a path that eventually gave him the universal fame for his paintings which he now enjoys.

 

There is nothing more inspiring than flying in an engineless aeroplane with only the whistle of the wind breaking up the pure silence known only by eagles and gliders slicing through the atmosphere chasing thermals for lift. For some reason artists and writers who are involved with flight become greatly inspired and perhaps Robert inherited this abstract appreciation of flight in his DNA.

 

Robert started painting and collecting things from the age of three and has never looked back. Now internationally accepted as a great artist he has reached fifty an age when every artist takes a step backwards and takes a good hard look of what went before and what might be for the future. I had the honour of meeting Robert during his exhibition at the Square 1 Gallery and for an hour I listened to his fascinating ideas for the creative role of the artist.   

 

“I don’t think art and expressing oneself is a choice. If you have a choice you wouldn’t do it although once you have embarked on the holy grail of the artist if there is a choice factor involved, then the choice is not to make it easy. The choice is to be stimulated by life. The choice is to be a thinking human being. I don’t want to get stuck in an old paradigm; I don’t want to be someone subservient to any one or regime that might elect themselves to make the rules according to the ego of the individual. I want to be someone who expands his consciousness as much as he can whilst I am on this planet.  I do that and I find it is selfish but so be it. I believe that for me as an artist and painter this is perhaps the necessary way forward. Now at fifty I am entering a chapter where I feel that I must adopt a lighter attitude towards aspects of my life although this doesn’t mean I have to spend less time in my studio…..”                                

 

Appropriate words with which Robert Slingsby gave a vision of his serious role as an internationally acclaimed South African painter who started his life with a philosophy and perspective that differed from the South African Establishment. He found apartheid a monstrous and horrific nightmare but due to the repression of the prevalent political regime he was only able to express his disapproval through politically didactic paintings. Any overheard conversations that denigrated apartheid was likely to put the speaker in prison and in the fifties the police had eyes and ears everywhere. This ethnic fascism was a style of politics which Robert abhorred and as soon as he could he left South Africa to take up residence in Holland where he stayed for many years.

 

Robert is not only an artist but an artist who has certain humanitarian qualities that extend far beyond the requirements of an ordinary painter. But then real artists have two responsibilities and Robert is a real artist. The first is for the expression of their art form and the second (related to the first) is a comment on the society in which he lives via his personal technique, paint brush chisel or whatever. Artists who use words as their form of censure have a comparatively easy format.  More difficult is the comment via the paint brush or chisel.

 

Before Robert left South Africa he matured as a human being and like the true artist, reacted to the dark days of the seventies until in 1976, the streets of Cape Town reverberated with the mob noise created by the education riots. This was the catalyst that decided Robert to leave his native land and in 1977 he left South Africa to study at the Vrije Akademie in Den Haag Holland. There he developed as a painter in oils producing a more classical style of pictures with images easily recognised as distinct from the abstract techniques of the latter half of the twentieth century.

 

After Holland he returned to post apartheid Africa and lived among the people who were the victims of this iniquitous political structure. He learned of their deserved but denied humanity by becoming part of their sub culture when he visited the blacks in their own environment and shanty town homes. He began to understand their tragedy and their past by walking the deserts and studying their thrown away detritus which Robert found during his “walkabouts” in the sands of “Table Bay” and the desert lands close to their places of work. It was this detritus which gave Robert the inspiration for remarkable exhibition which filled the walls at the Square 1 Gallery Chelsea.  Efficiently organised by Sandie Lowry, the Square 1 Gallery is a relatively new, stylish, elegant and fashionable gallery at the Fulham end of the Kings Road where Robert made an indelible impression and a powerful statement about the dark days of South African apartheid and the heartless use of what was basically slave labour and the employment of human beings as animals and beasts of burden for which they were paid just enough for basic existence survival.  Whereas the ordinary member of the establishment waited for the abolishment of apartheid before adopting the now fashionable politically correct modern status quo attitude of South Africa.   Robert Slingsby was a pathfinder for a minority which, with the help of Nelson Mandela, was to grow into a large majority of people whose sense of humanity raised strong objections to an iniquitous way of life that some white settlers fought to maintain.  Robert’s incredible creations hanging on the walls at the Square1 Gallery were a powerful, retrospective statement of the evil of apartheid and the kind of life the blacks were condemned to.  He used ordinary artefacts and detritus which had been abandoned since the early days of industrial apartheid and thrown away by the black workers from the diamond mines and other industries where they worked more like prisoners in a chain gang than people with the rights of a human being. Many years later Robert had wandered these lands and found them buried and hidden in the sands of South Africa. He took them home and added them to his collection and finally converted them to an art form with intrinsic beauty.

 

At first glance, without being told, one simply does not recognise what Robert has used to make up his creation but, on closer inspection, it suddenly dawns upon one that they are an eclectic selection of jugs, bowls, cans, utensils, all of which once had a use and were the owned by the black workers who had suffered so much. There was even an ancient (40 years plus) stolen money box, (with indications that it had been forced opened) a string instrument constructed out of a large tin with attachments for the strings, a bike carrier still with some of its original wire and many other things which could be recognised only with difficulty as the original object when first manufactured. As well as such commonplace objects there were constructions made out of brass and representing the shanty town shacks and even a small village which had candles fired inside, glowing with a life of their own. Whatever Robert Slingsby created he transformed them by what can only be described as magical transmogrification of the true artist. He took the discarded artefacts and detritus of apartheid and made them via acrylic on canvas or mixed media into a magic that few people can create.

 

Copyright Dorian van Braam.  The Renaissance Press March / April 2006 list of Exhibitions       

2014     Works on screen - Saatchi Gallery, London            

2014     'Play' Nirox sculpture park, Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site           

2014     'Crossing the line' book accepted into Thomas J. Watson Library / Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York                    

2014     'Crossing the line' Solo exhibition Barnard Gallery, Cape Town                     

2013     Changing Faces: Profiling Portraits in South African Art BARNARD GALLERY             

2013     Cover Art Sout Africa Vol. 11.3 1st March - 31st May                      

2012     Barnard Gallery 'The Gallery Dinner Collection' 19th December                    

2012     Barnard Gallery one man show 'Money and God in his pocket' 24th October              

2012     FNB Joburg Art Fair represented by Barnard Gallery            

2011     Works on permanent display at ATLANTIC GALLERY since 1982 - 2011                     

2011     Developed series 'Just Injustice'

Sandie Lowry, Kensington Park Rd pop-up, London

'Gallery Collection' Barnard Gallery

2010    

CC - Unlimited power, Christiaan Barnard Gallery, September

CC - Unlimited power, UCT Irma Stern Museum, June

The Essential Exhibition Christiaan Barnard Gallery, June

Gallery Genesis, Athens, Greece - May

Painting Midas touch selected as part of Fifa Official Poster edition

2009    

Prepared for one-man exhibition at the Irma Stern 2010

In Black and White April/ May at the Bell-Roberts Contemporary Art Gallery

2008    

Preparing for major exhibitions 2010

2007    

June Square 1 Gallery, London, solo exhibition

MAY - Cork Street Gallery, London

Exhibited with Cuban artist, Ernesto Rancaño at Square One Gallery, London

Art Expo, New York with Park Bench Gallery

Cologne, Germany

Visited China & Switzerland

2006    

November - Hout Street Gallery, Paarl

November - Art International, group exhibition Nassau, Bahamas.

August Woman - Roots of Namaqualand, curated by Nama San of the Steinkopf/Richtersveld Art's and Craft, Springbok

November - Visit from World Presidents Organisation to the studio

YPO auctioned Slingsby painting which raised over $69,900.00 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre

'Bones of the rusting carpet' solo exhibition at the Square One Gallery, London, April

Cannazaro House, Wimbledon, July

 

 

2005    

Selected as a finalist in Brett Kebble Art Competition Exhibition that was cancelled as a result of his untimely death. 

Art International goup show Nassau, Bahamas

Power house solo exhibition at the Bell-Roberts Contemporary Art Gallery - Cape Town

2004    

Finalist in Brett Kebble Competition exhibition

2003    

Researching Stones of Africa

Exhibiting in Korea

2001    

Solo exhibition at the Air Gallery, London, September

Richard De Marco - On the Road to Meikle Seggie, as part of the Venice Bienale

Research in Egypt

2000    

Richard De Marco - On the Road to Meikle Seggie

Dundas Art Gallery, Edinburgh

Hanover EXPO 2000: GERMANY

Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston University, U.K.

Slingsby Painting in Collaboration with YPO University 200 raises $250,000.00

1999    

Osborne Gallery, London

Bourne Fine Art, Edinburgh

Edinburgh Festival - First South African visual artist in twenty-seven years to be invited.

Invited to Malta 

Research in Malta & Egypt

1998    

Klein Karroo Festival, Oudtshoorn

Lisbon Expo, Portugal 

Art Beyond Borders, Augsberg, Germany

CNN Arts Club interview

EKHAYA, Travelling Exhibition to Tsoga-Langa, Uluntu, Guguletu.                            

Gallery 88, Sasolburg

EKHAYE. African Studies, University of Cape Town

IDASA Gallery, Cape Town

Worcester Association of Arts, Worcester

1997    

Kunskamer, Cape Town

Code Red, Perth, Australia

1996    

Association of Arts, Cape Town

Installation on Robben Island - Memorial Sculpture    

The Arts Association of Belville

Primart, Cape Town  

Gallery 68, Cape Town     

Code Red, Perth, Australia         

Volkskas Atelier Finalist, SAAA

1995    

Primart, Cape Town

BMW Pavilion, Cape Town

Sisonke Association of Arts, Mitchells Plain

Bellville Association of Arts

1994    

SA Cultural History Museum, Cape Town

Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg

Quid Novi Gallery, Germany

V & A Waterfront, Cape Town

World Convention Centre, Singapore

World Trade Centre, Hong Kong

Very Special Arts Gallery, Washington D.C.

Primart, Cape Town

1993    

Cape Town Arts Festival V & A Waterfront, Cape Town

Made in Wood: Works from the western Cape, SANG

University of Stellenbosch Gallery, Stellenbosch

De Oude Drostdy Museum, Tulbagh

Primart, Cape Town

Visual Arts Foundation, Johannesburg

South African Association of the Arts, Pretoria

1992    

Primart, Cape Town

1991    

Primart, Cape Town

Gallery International, Cape Town

SANLAM Collection, Baxter Gallery, Cape Town

South African Association of Arts

Labia Gallery, Cape Town

William Humphries Art Museum, Kimberly

20 Years of S.A. Art Kunskamer, Cape Town

1990    

Gallery International, Cape Town

Gallery 709, Cape Town

1989    

Johannes Stegman Art Gallery, Bloemfontein

Natalie Knight Gallery, Johannesburg

Jane se Kunshuis, Paarl     

Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg

1988    

The Sasol Art Collection, Rand Afrikans University

Durbanville Cultural Museum

University of Stellenbosch Gallery, Stellenbosch

Primart Gallery, Cape Town

Volkskas Atelier Finalist, SAAA

Kronendal Restaurant, Cape Town

1987    

Cape Town Festival

Volkskas Atelier Finalist, SAAA

1986    

Volkskas Atelier Finalist, SAAA

1985    

Tributaries - a View of Contemporary SA Art  for BMW RSA, Touring Germany

Cape Town Triennial Competition Finalist, SANG

1984    

Masterworks on Paper SANG, Cape Town

Gallery 21, Johannesburg

1983    

SA Contemporary Realism, Pretoria Art Museum

South African Association of Arts

Gowlett Gallery, Cape Town

1982    

Gowlett Gallery, Cape Town

Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg

Cape Town Triennial Finalsit

South African Association of Arts

1981    

Toys, The Hague, Holland

La Tertulia, Amsterdam, Holland

1980    

Sheraton Hotel, Amsterdam, Holland

1979    

Posthoorn, Den Haag, Holland

1978    

Galery Galjoen, S'Hertogenboch, Holland

Gallery ’77, Ijsselstein, Holland

Nederlandse Fijnschilders, t’Kunsthuis, V H Ooste, Holland

Gallery Ploemp, Delft, Holland

1976    

Gallery International, Cape Town

1975    

Award in New Signature competition

1972    

First exhibition in Diocesion College - Bishops Art Loft

 

 

COLLECTIONS

ABSA

Pietersburg Art Museum

Artoteek, Dutch Municipal Collection

Witwatersrand University Collection

William Humphries Museum

SASOL Public Collection

South African Reserve Bank

Investec Bank

Telkom

Cape of Good Hope Bank

Sanlam Public Collection

Department of Foreign Affairs

South African Embassy, Brussels

Bunders Bank, Germany

Coronation

Pepsico

Rand Merchant Bank

SANTAM

SEEFF Holdings

Deutsche Bank, Johannesburg