Walter Oltmann / Penumbra / 2013
Wire is Walter Oltmann’s main medium for making sculptural works and he manipulates it in a way that emphasises hand-made process, using the linear quality of wire to create forms and surfaces through techniques that parallel handcrafts. His new works – created for his solo exhibition Penumbra at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg – explore interconnections between drawing and sculpture and consist mainly of wire wall hangings that resemble overblown lace or crochet work.
Using mostly a thin (1mm diameter) aluminium wire, these net-like works are made by layering and stitching together sections of weave to create a form of three-dimensional tonal drawing. The resulting wall hangings declare their presence through scale and surface texture but often look delicate and at times even insubstantial. “I have made connections to domestic textile practices in previous artworks and continue to explore such forms of making in these works in evoking fragility and the passage of time,” explains Oltmann. “My work thus carries a very definite textile sensibility and I am interested in making connections between decorative ornament and subject matter that seems somewhat contradictory or disturbing in relation to such handcrafted embellishment.”
The works forming part of Penumbra explore archeological images (skulls and skeletons) that Oltmann frequently draws on, engaging with the notion of deep time, such as geological time, change and evolution. Oltmann also more specifically returns to the theme of “mother and child”. His pairing of an adult skull with that of a child’s counters the expected sentiment and underscores the tragic loss of the tender bond between mother and child. What is usually presented as a nurturing and serene scene becomes a disturbing testament to catastrophe. He furthermore explores the image of the sleeping child, another common image used by artists to depict the innocence and serenity associated with sleep, but it has also frequently been used to evoke death or to suggest death as a form of sleep.
Artworks
About
Walter Oltmann
Walter Oltmann (b. 1960, Rustenburg, North-West Province, South Africa) has an extensive record of creative work produced since the early 1980s, including a number of public commissions. Since the 1980s, he has developed an interest in the relationship between fine art and craft. In his own practice he employs hand-fabricated processes of making and has researched wire craft traditions in southern Africa. In his works, Oltmann makes connections to domestic textile practices and explores such forms of making in evoking fragility and the passage of time. He often combines aspects of decorative ornament with subject matter that seems somewhat contradictory or disturbing in relation to handcrafted embellishment. His sculptural works are executed by way of weaving in wire and using handcrafting methods that reference African and Western traditions of weaving. He is deeply interested in the influence of craft traditions in contemporary South African art.
He obtained a BA Fine Arts degree from the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg (1981), and an MA Fine Arts degree (1985) and PhD in Fine Arts degree (2017) from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg – where he worked as a Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor in Fine Arts.
In 2001, Oltmann was awarded the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Arts. His solo exhibition which followed travelled throughout South Africa. In 2014, the Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg hosted his solo show In the Weave which profiled three decades of the artist’s work.
Oltmann received the Claire & Edoardo Villa Will Trust’s Extraordinary Award for Sculpture for 2022, enabling him to produce an extensive body of work, undertaken in the Villa-Legodi workshop at NIROX Sculpture Park where the works were also publicly shown. A book on his work titled In Time will be published shortly.
In his PhD thesis titled In The Weave: Textile-based Modes of Making and the Vocabulary of Handcraft in Selected Contemporary Artworks from South Africa, Oltmann examines how and to what ends contemporary artists working in South Africa have chosen to engage in practices that are common to textile-based handcraft traditions of weaving, stitching and tying. His focus is on how these artists have understood manual work and its philosophy, and how conceptualization in their creative practice is accessed through the physical act of repetitive making by hand, based particularly on those traditional textile craft practices associated with weaving.
Collections include: Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, Norval Foundation, Cape Town and the Seattle Art Museum, Washington.
Oltmann lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa.
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