Exhibit set to present Namibian identity through art
Local visual artist, Lynette Diergaardt, will showcase her solo exhibition ‘Namibian Identity Through Textiles’, on 6 June, 18:00 at the National Arts Gallery of Namibia.
The exhibition is a collection of prints in search of a Namibian identity through the elements of art such as patterns, repetitions, colours and visual textures.
Lynette manipulates the surface of the cloth to visually communicate a concept that tells a much larger story than the cloth on its own.
She said that textile fibre art connects in a way to the human spirit and mind by producing a symbolic connection through memory, heritage, artistic processes and that this is influences her work the most.
“For as long as I have been a student and educator there has been a search for a Namibian identity post- apartheid and perhaps inclusive or even excluding of international influences through media and imported products,” she explained.
The exhibition explores unique patterns that are derived from biological organisms collected around the artists’ environment, which she drew and turned into patterns. “It was important to show a larger Namibian Identity, because in order to develop a holistic project it was important to show different drawing styles, so that the body of work could truly reflect Namibia,” she added.
For the past four years Lynette has been on a journey of discovery, a discover of who Namibians are visually in order to collect this data in the form of prints and large scale textile painting that make up the exhibition.
