Blue + Yellow

Start your Twilight Meander on Friday 3 October in Wilder Street at the opening of the Blue & Yellow Exhibition from 4 pm.

As the world has become obsessed with social media, we recognise a clear disconnect globally in how people choose to engage with their ecological environment. The habit of scrolling as a mediated version of connection promotes a distanced perspective, but it also presents a narrated view of the current status quo.

By exhibiting artworks that pertain to ecological concerns, we aim to draw attention to the behavioural disconnect between humans and our ecological environment. The artists exhibiting foster a deeper connection with nature, through their creative research, in order to actively engage with the ecological system that they form a part of.

This exhibition offers an alternative perspective to what we perceive when we are doom-scrolling.  The artworks exhibited, aim to collectively challenge our position of interacting with the world from behind a screen, by confronting viewers with an opposing experience of material matter. The materials used are considered, sourced and manipulated for conceptual transference from the artist’s studio to the exhibition space.

The significance of the tactile qualities of the exhibited artworks lie in the intrigue and curiosity it evokes within viewers, in order to draw their attention to their ecological surroundings. The exhibition will open 4 pm on the evening of 3 October as part of the Plett Arts Twilight Meander. The opening evening will include welcome drinks.

The Yoga Space. 6 Wilder Street

ABOUT INGRID BOLTON

Ingrid Bolton resides and works out of her studio in Cape Town. Her area of interest is bringing pressing global issues into the public space for discussion. Her background in microbiology fuels her need to make the microscopic world visible.

A few years running a farm led her to focus attention on the changes in climate conditions and the human-nature connection or kincentricity. Her predominant focus is climate change and Bolton works with materials like coal dust ink, calcium carbonate and porcelain. Her methods include monotype printing, embroidery and installation.  Recently she has exhibited work that looks at the role of microscopic organisms in the oceans, cable theft and ocean acidification – all global problems.

Bolton won the Sasol New Signatures competition in 2012 and her work is included in the Pretoria and the Kruizenga Art Museums, and in the University of South Africa, Sasol and Kilbourne collections. She has had solo shows at the Pretoria Art Museum, Sasol Art Museum and at Iziko South African Museum. She completed her Master’s degree at Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2016, after finishing the BVA degree through Unisa, where she was later a contract lecturer.

ABOUT NICOLA GROBLER

Dr Nicola Grobler is an artist and senior lecturer in Fine Art at the School of the Arts, University of Pretoria and is currently Artist-in-Residence at Future Africa, UP. Her artistic practice is focused on artistic strategies involving public participation to bring urban multispecies entanglements to attention, such as in the artwork The Visitor Centre (2016-2018). Grobler’s practice reflects critically on artistic methods and approaches such as assemblage, relational aesthetics and anthropomorphism, while engaging with related fields such as urban ecology, empathy studies, care ethics and museum studies. Working across mediums in installation, sculpture, drawing, collage, artist’s books and video, her work seeks to establish connections between subjective experiences, artistic processes, scientific research and local contexts.

Her solo exhibition, Bat behaviour, was shown at the Free State Arts Festival (2025) and she participated in the group exhibition Plurality (2024), Javett-UP Bridge Gallery. Grobler’s article “Encouraging multispecies sociability through art: anthropomorphism in The Visitor Centre” is forthcoming in a special issue of de arte focused on artistic approaches to the environmental crisis. She is one of the research leads in the collaborative project, Co-MammalHub, that is focused on revitalising the public displays at the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History through embodied learning and co-creation.

ABOUT LELANI NICOLAISEN

Lelani Nicolaisen is a South African artist and curator. Her work explores notions of the everyday human connection with their natural environment. Her paintings capture the often overlooked in-between moments in life - the forgotten moments or spaces that aren’t seen as worthy of remembering. When looking from a distance, these moments become precious as one could never return to that exact moment in time. Her work confronts ideas of loss, trauma and renewal. 

Nicolaisen has a degree in Fine Arts and a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Pretoria. Her work is in public collections such as the University of Pretoria and the Art bank of South Africa. She has exhibited locally and internationally.

ABOUT GENEVE POTGIETER [nee Eloff]

South African artist Geneve Potgieter’s work embodies her appreciation for the natural environment. Being influenced by discourses of environmental awareness and her background in sustainable interior design, her work renders an ambiguous reflection towards a transient world. The abstraction of her subject matter creates a dissociation, which leaves a resolution just out of reach. Her work challenges a sense of familiarity, reflecting on intuitive preservation. Through her chosen mediums of charcoal, graphite and ink a close scrutiny of the more intimate parts of nature are considered, which are constantly in flux between an apprehensiveness of ecological loss and naïve admiration.

Potgieter is published in the 3rd Edition of The Collector’s Guide to Art and Artists in South Africa and completed her bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from the University of Pretoria.

ABOUT JOSLY LIEBENBERG [nee Van Wyk]

South African artist, Josly Liebenberg, explores ecological extinction through the observation and documentation of botanical morphology. Liebenberg’s drawings of endangered specimens touch on themes of ephemerality, provenance and absence. The transcendental qualities of the plant materials under investigation are reflected in the muted ink and watercolour palette and delicate biomorphic lines. Pushing the boundary between process sketches and an exhibition-ready artwork, Liebenberg considers each step of the art-making process to be significant.

Liebenberg holds a master’s and bachelor’s degree in fine art from the University of Pretoria. After completing her studies, Liebenberg worked in the furniture design space, where the order of development led her to value process-oriented thinking. Re-entering the art world, Liebenberg is excited to narrate conceptually focussed exhibitions through the platform of Micro.Exhibits.