@mornevisagie
mornevisagie@gmail.com
mornevisagie@gmail.com
Morné Visagie (b. 1989) is a
South African artist, printmaker and curator who lives and works in Cape Town.
Morné Visagie is a South
African artist, printmaker and curator who lives and works in Cape Town. Visagie is a PhD candidate at the European Graduate School, starting 2024.
The early years of Visagie’s life (1989–1995) were spent on Robben Island, South Africa, where his father served in the Department of Correctional Services. While it was a safe place for children to wander freely – a suburban idyll of sorts – it was a prison to many of its residents. Apartheid South Africa, however, was coming undone. Soon, prisoners would leave, and so too would the children. The year 1994 was the start of new beginnings on the mainland: for the warders and their families who lived on the Island and for the many political prisoners who had been exiled there.
Growing up on the Island, the Atlantic Ocean that separated Visagie from the mainland became a recurring theme in his imagination. To this, the colour blue has been the primary medium in his work; a personal symbol of death, loss, nostalgia, memory, religion, sexuality, exile and distance. Visagie engages with the Island’s history as a place of dislocation and loss for those imprisoned there and the sea as a transitional space between life and death. Drawing on personal recollections and collective histories, Visagie’s work offers a meditation on the sea as both a physical and psychological landscape.
I do not recall when I first realised the historical weight that my childhood island carried and the fate it promised for many people who were banished there. Innocent family photos of birthday parties and days spent by the swimming pool are haunted by the realities of the time. The enormity of the Island’s violent past exists alongside my personal relationship with that burdened space; it is the unspoken presence in much of my work as in my memories.
Memories of Visagie’s childhood on Robben Island are interwoven with historical facts, with narratives borrowed from literature and film, and images from art and life. Indeed, he has found in the lives and works of Adriaan Van Zyl, Derek Jarman, Jean Genet, Virginia Woolf and others a shared affinity for water. The sea – changeable, inconstant – reveals itself to be evocative of not only promise and peril, but of sensuality, desire and eroticism. It offers as imperfect parallel the image of the swimming pool and its attendant changing room, evoking a history of the queer body in art and writing.
The early years of Visagie’s life (1989–1995) were spent on Robben Island, South Africa, where his father served in the Department of Correctional Services. While it was a safe place for children to wander freely – a suburban idyll of sorts – it was a prison to many of its residents. Apartheid South Africa, however, was coming undone. Soon, prisoners would leave, and so too would the children. The year 1994 was the start of new beginnings on the mainland: for the warders and their families who lived on the Island and for the many political prisoners who had been exiled there.
Growing up on the Island, the Atlantic Ocean that separated Visagie from the mainland became a recurring theme in his imagination. To this, the colour blue has been the primary medium in his work; a personal symbol of death, loss, nostalgia, memory, religion, sexuality, exile and distance. Visagie engages with the Island’s history as a place of dislocation and loss for those imprisoned there and the sea as a transitional space between life and death. Drawing on personal recollections and collective histories, Visagie’s work offers a meditation on the sea as both a physical and psychological landscape.
I do not recall when I first realised the historical weight that my childhood island carried and the fate it promised for many people who were banished there. Innocent family photos of birthday parties and days spent by the swimming pool are haunted by the realities of the time. The enormity of the Island’s violent past exists alongside my personal relationship with that burdened space; it is the unspoken presence in much of my work as in my memories.
Memories of Visagie’s childhood on Robben Island are interwoven with historical facts, with narratives borrowed from literature and film, and images from art and life. Indeed, he has found in the lives and works of Adriaan Van Zyl, Derek Jarman, Jean Genet, Virginia Woolf and others a shared affinity for water. The sea – changeable, inconstant – reveals itself to be evocative of not only promise and peril, but of sensuality, desire and eroticism. It offers as imperfect parallel the image of the swimming pool and its attendant changing room, evoking a history of the queer body in art and writing.
Solo Exhibitions:
2024 Fovntain II (Violet, Antwerp, BE)
2023 A Sinless Season (Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, SA)
2019 The Last Colour to Fade (WITW/KRONE Gallery, Tulbagh, SA)
2018 Die Bloue Wis (Nuweland Gallery, Oosterzee-Buren, NL)
2018 Fovntain (Smith Gallery, Cape Town, SA)
2016 There are Gold Flecks in the Lapis (What If The World Gallery, Cape Town, SA)
2015 The Line of Beauty (What If The World Gallery, Cape Town, SA)
2014 Derek Jarman, 1994 (Brundyn+ Gallery, Cape Town, SA)
2013 Far from the sea, perhaps... (What If The World Gallery, Cape Town, SA)
2011 Tryst (Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town, SA)
Group Exhibitions & Art Fairs:
2023 Zsonamaco Sur Artfair (Nuweland Gallery, Mexico City, CDMX)
2022 AKAA Fair Paris (Nuweland Gallery, Paris, FR)
2021 AKAA Fair Paris (Nuweland Gallery, Paris, FR)
2021 1:54 London (Nuweland Gallery, London, UK)
2021 BIG ART (Nuweland Gallery, Amsterdam, NL)
2021 Volta Basel (Nuweland Gallery, Basel, Switzerland)
2021 Art Rotterdam (Nuweland Gallery, Rotterdam, NL)
2021 1:54 New York (Nuweland Gallery, Online)
2020 PEEP SHOW (HOICK, Online)
2020 AKAA Fair Paris (Nuweland Gallery, Online)
2020 BIG ART (Nuweland Gallery, Amsterdam, NL)
2020 1:54 New York (Nuweland Gallery, Online)
2020 Art Rotterdam (Nuweland Gallery, Rotterdam, NL)
2019 AKAA Fair Paris (Nuweland Gallery, Paris, FR)
2019 Re-Imagined Realities (Open24hrs, Cape Town, SA)
2016 A New Wave (Southern Guild, Cape Town, SA)
2015 Rhinos Are Coming (Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town, SA)
2015 Concerted Efforts (West Space, Melbourne, AUS)
2013 Positive Tension (What If The World Gallery, Cape Town, SA)
2012 Context (Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town, SA)
2012 Outside the Lines: An Exploration of Abstract Materiality (What If The World Gallery, Cape Town, SA)
2024 Fovntain II (Violet, Antwerp, BE)
2023 A Sinless Season (Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, SA)
2019 The Last Colour to Fade (WITW/KRONE Gallery, Tulbagh, SA)
2018 Die Bloue Wis (Nuweland Gallery, Oosterzee-Buren, NL)
2018 Fovntain (Smith Gallery, Cape Town, SA)
2016 There are Gold Flecks in the Lapis (What If The World Gallery, Cape Town, SA)
2015 The Line of Beauty (What If The World Gallery, Cape Town, SA)
2014 Derek Jarman, 1994 (Brundyn+ Gallery, Cape Town, SA)
2013 Far from the sea, perhaps... (What If The World Gallery, Cape Town, SA)
2011 Tryst (Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town, SA)
Group Exhibitions & Art Fairs:
2023 Zsonamaco Sur Artfair (Nuweland Gallery, Mexico City, CDMX)
2022 AKAA Fair Paris (Nuweland Gallery, Paris, FR)
2021 AKAA Fair Paris (Nuweland Gallery, Paris, FR)
2021 1:54 London (Nuweland Gallery, London, UK)
2021 BIG ART (Nuweland Gallery, Amsterdam, NL)
2021 Volta Basel (Nuweland Gallery, Basel, Switzerland)
2021 Art Rotterdam (Nuweland Gallery, Rotterdam, NL)
2021 1:54 New York (Nuweland Gallery, Online)
2020 PEEP SHOW (HOICK, Online)
2020 AKAA Fair Paris (Nuweland Gallery, Online)
2020 BIG ART (Nuweland Gallery, Amsterdam, NL)
2020 1:54 New York (Nuweland Gallery, Online)
2020 Art Rotterdam (Nuweland Gallery, Rotterdam, NL)
2019 AKAA Fair Paris (Nuweland Gallery, Paris, FR)
2019 Re-Imagined Realities (Open24hrs, Cape Town, SA)
2016 A New Wave (Southern Guild, Cape Town, SA)
2015 Rhinos Are Coming (Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town, SA)
2015 Concerted Efforts (West Space, Melbourne, AUS)
2013 Positive Tension (What If The World Gallery, Cape Town, SA)
2012 Context (Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town, SA)
2012 Outside the Lines: An Exploration of Abstract Materiality (What If The World Gallery, Cape Town, SA)