DRIES DE BEER

PICTURES: ALET PRETORIUS.

Art exhibitions come and go, with some pieces remembered, some purchased and others touching your heart. When the event features the work of someone who has turned himself into your personal artist yet has decided to show his work for the first time, the feelings all round are overwhelming. For me, it was the gift of sharing the art of Dries de Beer and the emotional impact it has had on our lives. DIANE DE BEER gives her biased opinion of an artistic celebration:

Invite designed by Ursa Engelbrecht Curator Carla Spies

When architect/gallerist/curator Carla Spies suggested that her gallery, The Guildy, curate an exhibition for my husband, the reluctant artist (as I have dubbed him), I knew this was the perfect space and opportunity.

No pressure, no sales and for one day only with people we invite who we think will enjoy the work. And that is exactly what Carla and her gallery represent. As an architect, her work is not on the creative side and through the years she knew she had to find a way of scratching that itch.

Even the guests looked like artworks

The gallery was her solution and, having just gone through the whole process of an exhibition, I understand how this works as I do a similar thing by writing about the arts. There’s no direct renumeration, we’re not driven by money but rather by a passion for the arts and how it affects, touches and changes people. It’s the creativity – the process and the outcome and, finally, the joy.

But I knew my artist would feel differently. NO! was the immediate response, but I worked my cause and finally he conceded.

The fabulous thing about this exhibition, which Carla named The Imaginarium of Dries de Beer, was that all the art was there. That is what interested Carla in the first place. She had seen especially his series of faces and was intrigued. It’s her gallery and like me, who only writes about the art that inspires me personally, she only shows work that moves her.

And I was quite clear that the thing I really wanted Dries to showcase was the diversity of his art. Because he has always been compulsive in a constructive way about his art, moving from one thing to the next, exhibiting a theme, yet in very different ways. He has played around in ceramics, cartoons (which he still does daily), scrapyard found objects, which would result in anything from a small human figure to huge installations, and glass tiles in which he made pictures with objects of lesser desire found on his daily walks and changed it into something exquisite.

On the ceramic side, it all began with handmade ceramic zebras painted and then fired for the final result. Thery were unique and each one individual but labour intensive. To really make money – if that were one’s goal – it would have to be mass-produced and then lose that artistic quality that each one displays.

This led to masks and hanging faces which started out as a mass of small and larger cement and ceramic balls which all found a place in our garden. Today those hanging installations, sculpted into different faces and fishes of different kinds are on window sills, against outside and inside walls, hanging outside from poles and trees and even in the shape of gargoyles, each at the end of a pergola pole as decoration. It’s the way he changes and enhances what would just have been another ordinary garden structure. Instead a secret world of chattering ceramic faces and masks emerged

I have written about the work of many artists in an introductory rather than critical fashion. Fine art is something I had to give exposure to because as times grew tough, newspapers and magazines featured less and less specialist writers. Mine was the performing rather than the fine arts, but I knew we had to embrace as wide a range of the arts as was possible – and that’s what I still try to do.

Ceramic gargoyels.

But with this artist’s work, because he and his work are mine, working at a formal institution I couldn’t focus on any of his work. That’s why this exhibition was so important to me and gave me such pleasure. To do it with Carla and her crew, was a dream come true.

Dries, who slowly warmed to the idea of showing his work, and I made the initial selection of what we wanted to show and then Carla and her musician/entrepreneur husband Werner arrived a week before the showing to look at the final selection and help us move the work from home to gallery.

Then the fun really began, as we started hanging the work. This is where Carla and Werner took over while we helped on the side. It’s no easy thing to physically do the hanging and even more specialised is to decide how and where to display each single piece. This is where, I suspect, Carla’s creativity kicks in – and she knows what she wants. We could just stand smiling at the results.

I suspect for Dries it was a new way of experiencing his work. In our house the effect is diminished by it being all over the place. Here it was Dries de Beer in full force – and whether you like it or not, which is a personal choice and what art is all about, this was a special display and one of which even the reluctant artist approved.

I appreciated once again what inspires me most about his art. It comes from within, it’s who he is and how he has conversations with himself and the world – and me.

Also on board were a group of special friends who gathered around me and took over when I really needed help. Writing about the creatives in the food world as well, I have my own favourites and Alicea Malan of Lucky Bread Company https://www.luckybread.co.za/ and Elze Roome of Tashas, Menlyn Main feature on that short list.

I simply asked Alicea about some produce and she said “Leave it to me.” She pulled together a spread with the amazing breads from Lucky Bread https://www.luckybread.co.za/ and then, as importantly, showcased it at the gallery in a way that just adds that edge to any event. Elze Roome https://www.tashascafe.com/locations/pretoria/menlyn-maine/ jumped in with the sweet stuff which was melt-in-the-mouth.

To add yet even more sparkle to the event, Werner on bass and Rynier Prins made exquisite background music, often I think one of the more thankless jobs and yet it fills a room full of people with a sound that’s embracing.

Also part of the picture was one of Carla’s most recent employees, Ursa Engelbrecht. She’s a young woman with artistic flair, was immediately excited, designed the invite and helped out everywhere and anywhere she could. She and Estevan Kuhn also provided music when the first duo needed a break.

So when people ask me about the worth of a single day showing which is what The Guildy specialises in, I can only underline how it brings a group of creatives in different fields together to create a little bit of magic in the world of those who share this kind of passion.

Ursa and Estavan (left) andRynier and Werner (right) making wonderful music.

I know my artist looks at Carla and Werner with eyes that appreciate how they approach life and the world they hope to create. I know he saw how people like Alicea, Elze and Ursa all stepped in to add their special icing to this magnificent cake.

And more than anything, it gave my reluctant artist the chance to see how others viewed his work, to inspire fresh and novel ideas, and to view the future in a way where he shares his work with more people than just me. This was his chance to shine brightly.

Mission accomplished!