Nel Gallery |Built

Nel Gallery is pleased to present Built. 

”Buildings are places in which to hide, rest, share, gather, work, worship, sue, invest, feast, heal, make love, dream, learn, and create … places in which to experience all human emotions, satisfactions, and discords. They are containers and incubators. Buildings tell the story of humanity.
In any city where you work or live, there are familiar faces, sounds and routes. But, just as easily, you can feel isolated. There is silence within all that noise” - Madeleine van Manen
Built, Madeleine van Manen’s first solo exhibition at Nel showcases work that focuses on the urban landscape starting with the building in the central area of Cape Town where she keeps her studio. Then, she looks out over a built-up vista. She paints these views as well as the ways to and from the city. The built aspects of the city, not the noise and not the many people. Her focus is the silences, the gaps where the individual finds itself amongst a cluster of spaces, some public and some designated to specific functions, like banks and offices. Because they are not populated, we ask a couple of simple questions.

Where is she?
Does she belong there?
What does she observe?
How does she relate?

These questions flash through our thoughts upon first viewing these paintings and just as easily can be turned into questions about life and our place in this world. Therein lies the central theme within this body of work. They are fundamental questions about identity and our environment / our context. These paintings do not necessarily provide us with answers. The tone is strikingly respectful, honest and almost shy. These questions are greatly existential in a way that is personal to the artist but also on a wider scale and applies to everybody.

This show runs from 18 October 2023 - 30 November 2024.