Kylie Wentzel - The Botanic Gardens

01.07.23 - 29.07.23
Solo Exhibition at
Kalashnikovv Gallery,
Johannesburg

Exhibition Statement

Kylie Wentzel’s desire to break away from artistic conditioning has led her to explore mediums outside of her formal training. Now mostly conquering large canvases with acrylic paint, her style is graphic and intuitive, often mimicking her loose lino-cutting techniques. She gathers her inspiration from the natural and constructed environments around her, kitsch prints, strong smells, imported goods for sale on a hot city pavement, passing faces, and Tipp-Ex text scribbled on derelict alley walls. Kylie’s work examines the social fabric of Durban’s “locals only” spaces with deft touch.

Her work bears what the artist calls remnants of this influence, which she explains are evident in the “distinctive borders and using them to contribute to the narrative, mark-making, combining picture and text, [and] black and white bold graphics”. Wentzel’s aesthetic is intentionally loose and naïve, with a sense of raw immediacy that is also apparent in her subject matter: She is inspired by her surrounding environments – both natural and constructed – and the creatures, objects, smells and scribbles that inhabit, adorn and mark these many spaces.

For this exhibition, Wentzel explores the oldest surviving botanic garden in Africa that can be found in Durban, South Africa. It was first established for the cultivation of agricultural crops in 1849 on the banks of a crocodile and hippoinhabited Umgeni River. The gardens were moved a little further south, closer to the dusty developing town in an area of forest that was mostly surrounded by wetlands. As it evolved along with the town, the gardens went from being a wild environment that once saw the likes of a wandering lion, to becoming a significant botanical site recognised locally and internationally for its plant collection and research.

Today, the garden’s roots have grown to touch apartment blocks, corner shops, places of worship, schools and the streets that carry people on their commute in and around the city. This public oasis, wedged between concrete, offers its people softer grounds to step on, making it an ideal place for playfulness, connection and interaction. From scenes embellished with metallic birthday balloons to make-outs in the shadows, to proud parents jumping behind baby photographers, to remembering loved ones who have passed on, to exotic birds mingling with pigeons, to a wafting cloud of hubbly bubbly smoke, to bridal parties in iridescent satin – THE BOTANIC GARDENS takes a stroll along the paths of Durban’s oldest public institution.