“Whilst creating art I enter a space where I can be myself. Where I can work through and reflect on what I experience in everyday life… almost like meditation in action. As personal as this process is, I feel art has the power to change the world and the way we experience it, through what we as artists show others.” Lindi Lombard
At Kingswood, we are so fortunate to be supported by a talented and highly-qualified community, and this week, we were reminded of that.
Lindi Lombard, an award-winning local artist who matriculated in 2007, gifted Kingswood one of the paintings that made up her Rhodes University 2012 Fine Art Undergraduate Exhibition entitled “Transit” that will be displayed in the school’s ICE Centre (The centre of ‘Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship’).
Here she is photographed with Senior Head, Mrs Tracy van Molendoff who accepted the painting on behalf of the College.
The painting is part of an exploration into the feelings of isolation, alienation and disconnect that comes with today’s world, and we hope it will both stimulate and inspire pupils to consider the power of art as a connector between artist, the artwork itself and themselves. This painting (oil on canvas, 2 x 1,5 metres) is one in a series of five paintings.
Lindi is currently a senior teacher at the Carinus Art Centre in Makhanda (focusing on textiles) and is active in the art community nationally. We cannot thank her enough for sharing her work and talent with the pupils of Kingswood.
About the artist:
Lindi Lombard was born in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape of South Africa in 1989 and matriculated from Kingswood College in 2007. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Art degree at Rhodes University in 2012, graduating with a distinction in studio practice. She went on to complete her Master of Fine Art degree in 2015 also at Rhodes University, graduating with distinction.
Lombard is a multi-award-winning artist. She won Second Prize in 2015 at the XX: Celebrating Women Artists of the Eastern Cape as well as winning a Merit Prize (Top 7 in South Africa) in both 2012 and 2013 at the Sasol New Signatures National Art Competition. She was also one of the top 100 finalists at the ABSA L’Atelier National Art Competition in 2013.
Lombard works predominantly in the medium of painting, with architecture, demolition and deconstruction as focus. Her recent Master of Fine Art submission was a substantial exhibition of paintings, ranging in scale from works the size of a brick to works the height of a single-story house. Often utilizing a highly representational style, she also works with abstract mark making, sign systems and technical plan drawings.
Artist statement:
“I’ve often been aware of the feeling of loneliness whilst being amongst many people, a sense of isolation, alienation and disconnect. In this body of work, I’ve used this observation as a visual and conceptual trigger.
People in public or transit spaces can be packed shoulder to shoulder, but there is no communication and minimal eye contact. Everyone, in that moment, is waiting: while they occupy this liminal space, they are removed, engrossed in their own thoughts and problems.
The urban individual’s yearning for presence and the seeming impossibility of attaining it is a symptom of contemporary society, which I have visually explored through painterly tension. While the architectural details are photographically real and static, the movement or presence of people within these spaces has been shifted into a more painterly and ephemeral register.
The work aims to give the viewer a look into my personal experience of alienation and to open up the possibility for a deeper personal exchange between me and the viewer and the viewer and the work.”