Marlise Keith | Clovelly - Cape Town | Mixed Media Collages, Drawings & Fabric Sculptures

Marlise Keith (b. 1972) is known for her mixed media collages; large-scale drawings in pencil, ink and acrylics; and most recently, for her small sculptures of fabric, embroidery and found objects.

Her subject matter is vast, drawing inspiration from a mental medley of horrific news headlines, colonial history, friends’ pets, psychopathology, girlhood memories, dreams, Pinterest, her persistent, chronic migraines, and roadside memorials.

Subjects too daunting, too confused, or too subliminal to articulate in neat words and sentences, are processed through mark-making; offering an alternative “understanding” of a world that often does not make sense in traditional, logical language.

This violence emerges in plentiful paint; sometimes it’s suggested by the very act of mark-making itself - paper is gouged, scratched, sanded, torn, folded, and nailed.

Material Juxtapositions and the Question of Value

The question of value is often explored through Keith’s other choices of media. In her assemblages she juxtaposes found objects and media of varying value:

• Well-worn but beloved t-shirts
• Expensive gesso
• Broken curios
• Highly specialised micro-mosaic
• R5 Store purchases
• Luxurious fabrics

These are combined and further worked with embroidery, intricate line, fur, paint, and sequins.

The creatures seem to emerge directly from Keith’s self-labelled mental “soup”, equal parts cute and hideous, dark, and witty.

Surreal Layers of Violence, Colour and Humour

The result is a richly layered body of work, both violent and uncanny, made more surreal with a playful use of colour and humour.

The latter draws in the viewer to a closer scrutiny of the darker complexities lurking beneath, which offer endless possibilities of meaning.

Connect with the Artist

Follow Marise on Instragram:

📸 @marlise.keith

Website: www.marlisekeith.com

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