Gratrix’s provocative works are heavily imbued with a fun aesthetic and a sense of deprecating laughter.
Cape Town-based Georgina Gratrix is one of the most exciting and innovative young artists on the South African contemporary art scene.
Part mocking, part criticism, part play, Gratrix’s work offers an inverted visual take on the world. Instilled with her youthful energy and personal experience, her work is refreshing, entertaining and complex.
WATCH: Nando’s Creative Exchange recognizes emerging artists
Gratrix’s provocative works are heavily imbued with a fun aesthetic and a sense of deprecating laughter.
Extending from the grandeur and sacrosanct icons of traditional art canons, contemporary pop-culture and the artist herself, no social hierarchies are absolved as subjects.
A thick, almost obscenely excessive application of oil paint forms the layers of make-up and decoration on her subjects’ faces and bodies.
READ: William Kentridge the sculptor
Portraiture is a favorite genre, explored primarily in painting, but also in drawing, printmaking, collage, and assemblage.
History and achievements
According to SMAC Gallery Gratrix was born in Mexico City in 1982 and grew up in Durban, South Africa. She studied at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, and graduated in 2005, specializing in painting.
In 2018, Gratrix was awarded the Discovery Prize at the 50th Anniversary edition of Art Brussels, for her presentation with SMAC Gallery in Brussels, Belgium.
Gratrix is also a recipient of the Ampersand Fellowship Award and completed a residency at the Ampersand Foundation in New York City, USA in 2018.
READ: Artist Profile: Meet Igshaan Adams, A Mixed Media Artist
She completed a residency in Oaxaca, Mexico, in association with a Centro de las Artes Augustín (CASA) culminating in an exhibition entitled Crossing Night in the same year.
Most recently, Gratrix was included in the following group exhibitions: Punch, curated by Nina Chanel Abney, at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in Los Angeles, USA; Skin Stealers at Nicodim Gallery in Los Angeles; the Ampersand Foundation Award 21 years celebration exhibition curated by Gordon Froud at the University of Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) in Johannesburg, South Africa, all in 2019.
Solo exhibitions include: On Repeat, at SMAC Gallery in Johannesburg, in 2018; Puppy Love, at SMAC Gallery in Cape Town, in 2016; The Berlin Paintings at Die Tankstelle in association with Nolan Judin Gallery in Berlin, Germany, in 2013; My Show in 2012 at SMAC Gallery in Stellenbosch; and Everything Ecstatic, at Ten Haaf Projects in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 2010.
See more of her works here.
