When you see artist Ansa Clacey’s multimedia paintings at the exhibition The Silence in-between at the Pretoria Association of Art, stories pop into your head. It’s the fairytale quality of her work, the colours, the titles as well as the fact that she plays with paint and threads. Sometimes she paints, other times she works with needle and thread and often she combines the two. She shares her story with DIANE DE BEER:

Ansa Clacey’s current exhibition specifically explores the silence in-between the fragments and threads of our own stories.  Because she is constantly telling her own stories, she assumes everyone does that. And it is especially that presumption which informs her work.

She can take you through the exhibition and tell each artwork’s story, but what she really wants, is that her audience will find their own stories as they engage with her work.

She can hardly think of a time when she wasn’t drawing and on her first school day, she was thrilled when the teacher asked them to draw specific shapes. But with her imagination and ability to draw, she chose her own shapes.

We are all familiar with those moments when you are expected to do things exactly as told and she was immediately taken to task for not following instructions. The trauma lingered for a long time, but fortunately, her natural instincts couldn’t be suppressed.

Years later, after arriving at Potchefstroom University where she was going to study (she thinks the initial plan was German and Geography), she spotted final auditions for a Fine Arts degree. The object she was asked to draw was a green pepper.

The result was not what was expected and she still recalls that she had no knowledge of technique. But her talent was spotted, described as raw, and she was accepted and enrolled for the degree.

Her parents who were funding her studies first heard of this career change from their local dominee who had bumped into Ansa and she was called home to explain. But things steamed ahead fortunately.

Following her studies, she joined the SABC’s art department where she worked on children’s programmes like Liewe Heksie and Wielie Walie, drama programmes and anything that needed a prop or a puppet. “We even had to manipulate the puppets,” she tells. But she learnt a lot and expanded her skills.

Further studies were required for this restless soul always on the lookout for new knowledge. So she acquired a fashion design certificate, which turned her head into yet another direction, and also meant that she started painting again, while also teaching at different fashion academies.

These days, painting is her life and she says that everything triggers stories in her head with a mind that is always switched on.

And once she has an idea, she can’t wait to get working. But the final product doesn’t resemble the initial picture. She explains that what she can’t see or hear is exactly what gets her imagination going.

Everyday objects, stories, especially folklore of Japanese origin, stimulates her as well as the people close to her, especially he granddaughter Ella, has dominated her work.

With two daughters, both living in London, she has time to work while keeping those who live afar, close in her imaginary world.

While drawing still informs her work, the needle and thread is her alphabet. Clothes and in this exhibition, the dresses her daughters wore when they were small, and now her granddaughter, are all featured in different ways.

Drawing and sewing form her language – like a pen is to the writer, each stitch or line she creates is her alphabet.  For the works on display, she used mainly pencil and pastel combined with stitching as her media. 

Threads, in different cultures, represent many different things: protection, repair, mending, hope and destiny, she says.

“I’m very drawn to cultural customs. Semamori for example is a Japanese custom which means ‘back protection’. Mothers handstitched intricate patterns on the back of their children’s kimonos to protect them from harm.  Often these embroideries have long threads hanging from them to assist good spirits to prevent children from falling. 

“Red thread knots would also be sewn on cloth for soldiers going to war.  These were worn as sashes under the uniforms to protect soldiers and give mothers and wives hope for their safe return.”

All of this informs her work, and is threaded through her stories, which all manifest in different ways to shape different tales and adventures for others. For her it is all therapeutic as she works alone while shaping her stories visually and solving problems she grapples with.

She could go on for days and often has to stop herself, stand back, and take a look from  afar.

She is the woman who finds a box with old and odd pieces of fabric, collars or swatches which will all form part of her language in yet another work in the future.

Ansa also turns her enemies into friends and especially the animals in her work are placed in unexpected settings to change who and what they traditionally represent.

It is a world of fantasy and make-believe but in this artist’s mind, it’s a world she can manipulate and make her own.

“The warmth and contemplation of drawing and stitching move me across places and vast timelines. They are the nostalgic markings of movement between past and present.  Like human emotions, strings and lines can entangle allowing viewers to imagine stories behind them”.

When walking through the exhibition, it takes you into another world, one where your narrative features. Clothes, colour and threads form a part of most of our lives, so the connections are varied depending on who you are and why something catches your eye.

Not only are Ansa Clacey’s creations unusual, but also exciting and stimulating as they fire the imagination.  Do not let the opportunity to view this rare collection pass you by.

Ansa Clacey

The Silence in between

Until 30 September

Association of Arts Pretoria

173 Mackie Street

Nieuw Muckleneuk

Tel:  012 346 3100

artspta@mweb.co.za | www.artspta.co.za

Gallery Hours

Tuesday to Friday:  9am to 5pm.

Saturday:  9am to 1pm.