Incorporating sculpture, installation, video and performance, Bronwyn Katz's practice engages with the concept of land as a repository of memory and trauma, reflecting on the notion of place or space as lived experience, and the ability of the land to remember and communicate the memory of its occupation.
Read MoreWorking with found natural materials such as iron ore, or used man made objects such as foam mattress and bed springs, Katz's approach to making is driven by storytelling and intuition. Conceptually, her sculptures refer to the political context of their making, embodying subtle acts of resistance that draw attention to the social constructions and boundaries that continue to define our environments.
For Katz, the language of abstraction is in active opposition to overt representation, allowing her work to be open to multivalent readings. Hers is a minimalism that converses with early forms of abstract art; methods and traditions of mark-making and story-telling that long predate Western Modernism.
Katz has held six solo exhibitions to date, including I turn myself into a star and visit my loved ones in the sky at White Cube in London (2021), Salvaged Letter at Peres Projects in Berlin (2019), / // ! ǂ at blank projects in Cape Town (2019), and A Silent Line, Lives Here at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2018).
Recently, her work has been included in the 59th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, the 2021 New Museum Triennial of New York and the Future Generation Art Prize shortlist exhibition. Previous group exhibitions include Upkeep: Everyday Strategies of Care (The Arts Club of Chicago, 2020); We Aim to Live (Zuzeum Art Centre, Riga, 2020); NIRIN (Biennale of Sydney, 2020); and Là où les eaux se mêlent (Biennale de Lyon, 2019). In 2019, she was awarded the First National Bank Art Prize.
Katz is a founding member of iQhiya, an 11-women artist collective which has performed across various spaces, including Documenta (in Kassel and Athens), Greatmore Studios, and Iziko South African National Gallery.
Born in 1993, in Kimberley, South Africa, Katz lives and works between Cape Town and Johannesburg.
Text courtesy the artist
