GERHARD MARX - Landscape Would Be the Wrong Word

Gerhard Marx's works are immediately exciting. Precise and structured, they pulse with energy and are like portals to new realms. You feel you could step into them: reach forward, rotate these three-dimensional planes of maps and plants, expand them, inhabit them.

Equally, they are a comment on the earth that already exists, but as Marx says, "landscape would be the wrong word". Where landscape implies distance - a horizon to be gazed upon - these works do the opposite. "Instead of making a landscape, I'm making a place", he explains. They invite not just looking but bodily encounter.

Marx has long been drawn to maps: interrogating how they project authority and shape the way we see the world. By folding, cutting and reassembling them, he opens new spatial possibilities and meaning. He's also begun to use plant matter as both tool and subject in this exploration. Gathered, dried nasturtium stems, hydrangea heads and poppy stalks form delicate, unruly constellations.

His new bronzes cast panels directly from untouched Karoo ground. These are not representations but imprints - physical contact with the earth's surface.

What links all these works is their immediacy and vitality. They resist flat description, conjuring layered, immersive spaces charged with possibility. They invite softer looking, where the background comes alive. In pushing us to see and think differently, Marx reminds us why he is among the most compelling artists working in South Africa today.

For enquiries please contact gallery@everard.co.za