Justin Orvis Steimer & Terrence Musekiwa: 'The Watchers'

50 Golborne is delighted to present ‘The Watchers’, an exhibition by Terrence Musekiwa(based in Harare (Zimbawe) and Justin Orvis Steimer (based in Brooklyn, USA)for the first time in the UK. For this occasion the two artists have resumed the artistic dialogue that they first started in Harare (Zimbabwe) in 2017 for the launch of Catinca Tabaracu Harare.

Both artist attempt to channel the divine, the metaphysical, the ancestors of spaces through line, paint, stone, and materials long ago discarded or forgotten.

Musekiwalends power and movement to obsolete materials. With bare hands and simple tools - the hammer, the chisel, a saw - he gives life and humour to brooms, forks, and helmets. With the skillful hands of several generations of Shona sculptors, he transforms stone into being, laboriously shaping its form, sometimes taking several months to finish one sculpture. He exists on the margins of past and present, traditional and contemporary, the physical world and the invisible spirits, order, and disorder; trying to find balance between opposite forces - the place where opposites meet; the shape that meeting takes. 

Steimerstarts with the spirit. With freehand lines and forms, he transposes space, time, and sound to offer a channelled truth. His paintings depict a series of responses to invisible sources that have been excluded from scientific versions of reality. He makes canvases from materials found or gifted; the pre-existing color, texture, and geometry affecting the finished result as much as his hand and paint. His work speaks to our souls more efficiently than to our minds.