Genus
An exhibition of drawings and sculptures

8 - 27 February 2008

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue

Rosemarie Marriott is exhibiting new drawings and sculptures at Art on Paper Gallery at 44 Stanley Avenue. The title of the exhibition, Genus, denotes a level of scientific classification, usually associated with the natural world, that includes such categories as family, class (or genus) and species. A previous exhibition of Marriott’s had the title, Geslag (English: gender, sex, lineage, generation, slaughtered). The genus Marriott apparently explores in this exhibition, is the moth: Family: Lepidoptera, Genus: Tinea. However, the viewer soon becomes aware of anomalies that set these ‘moths’ apart from their counterparts in the natural world. Their forms seem to have evolved over time in response to the logic of another set of environmental demands, suggesting that they belong to the natural taxonomy of some other parallel, but equally real, physical world.

The structural elements of Marriott’s moth drawings expand the boundaries of conventional drawing techniques… The images are created by making incisions with a blade into white board. These incisions create a network of fine ribbon-like strands, which Marriott then ‘blackens’ by rubbing them with charcoal. These incisions resemble strands of ‘hair’ that fall this way and that way across the picture plane, evoking the strong tactile sense of a moth, or of the ‘hair’ on her ‘moth’ sculptures.

The ‘hairy’ sculptures do not aim to fulfill any mimetic representational function. One of the main indicators of the shift from representation to conceptualization (in Marriott’s work) is the scale of the sculptures, ranging from disc or plate-size shapes to shapes that resemble a bulky human cloak. The conceptual nature of the sculptures is emphasized by the fact that Marriott uses the original body parts in new contexts: the ears of the antelope become the wings of the new ‘moths’ and dried scrotum become ‘moth’ heads, as if constructing a unique origin for each moth.

Marriott’s moth genus invokes the long relation that has existed between art and science. The physics of Max Planck in the early 20th century, for example, shifted the system of thought from notions of a world that had previously seemed to consist of solid, material, immediately verifiable objects, to something purely conceptual, a void filled with invisible energies. Rosemarie Marriott creates a veritable ‘Wunderkammern’, filled with a whole range of moth species, each emanating its own energy, perhaps suggesting alternative ways of thinking about the origin, evolution and purpose of natural phenomena.
Text extract from the exhibition catalogue essay by Wilhelm van Rensburg

Short biography

Rosemarie Marriott was born and grew up on a farm in the Kuruman district, Northern Cape, South Africa. She obtained a BA Degree from UNISA (1974) and an Advanced Diploma (Fine Arts) from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (1996).

Rosemarie Marriott has had numerous solo exhibitions since 1986 and has also participated in group exhibitions. Her work can be found in private, public and corporate collections in South Africa and abroad.

She lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa.