Nel | SKEMER by Juria Le Roux

Nel Presents SKEMER by Juria Le Roux. Skemer (dusk) is the result of years of artistic exploration focused on our relationship to this planet, climate and the elements of nature. The artist is fascinated with water and fire, as evidenced by the paintings in this solo exhibition.

“Both are potentially sustaining and nurturing, even seductive, both also possibly devastating” , Juria Le Roux.

Indeed, water is life, without which we cannot survive. The artist would show us an image of plastic pollution by painting a bag floating in water, beautifully rendered, looking almost like a jellyfish. This image delivers soft, deep melancholia when one understands that this beautiful but everyday view of a river evidences our devastating hand in nature. Juria Le Roux’s abiding love of fire manifests in many paintings. Again, she creates ambiguities, a bomb explosion reminds one of fireworks, and happy memories of celebration, only to recognise the telling mushroom-like shape that we all know indicates the nuclear nature of the light show, complete destruction has been in our hands for the past 70 plus years. Have we had any trouble aside from the horrific deaths of the last World War? There have been some slips.

In the painting Clusterfuck II she depicts a celebration somewhere in an alpine village, this was done at the same time as the leaders of the world’s largest economies were meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Fireworks are showering down on the scene. Without skipping a beat, the artist titles this – Clusterfuck. Using a porn term that describes an orgy. The underlying sentiment the artist harbours towards such G7 meetings is palpable. Juria Le Roux speaks about large-scale scenarios, possible outcomes that are far-reaching and affect all humanity, but it usually gets depicted in rather closer focus, and in everyday terms, like painting a simple plastic bag that carried grocery shopping in the past. This human scale in relation to the vastness makes the content prescient and haunting.

This show runs from 31st August - 10th October 2024.