WeeklySA_AdminCONCEPTS: In keeping with the Women’s Day theme today, the boutique Stellenbosch wine estate celebrates artistry and resilience of two prominent South African women artists by highlighting their exquisite art works on its farm…
By Len Maseko
To mark Women’s Month – which is celebrated particularly today (August 9) and throughout this month in South Africa – Cape winelands’ Delaire Graff Estate boutique winery has allocated a pride of place to display art works by two of the prominent local women artists.
One of the two artists is Deborah Bell, considered to be one of South Africa’s finest modern and contemporary artists. She is also renowned for creating highly mystical and personal pieces, and Delaire Graff is home to more than 20 of her works, including the sculpture series “Return of the Gods: The Ancient Ones”, “Unearthed” and “Sentinels”.
The other acclaimed artist whose creation adorns the Stellenbosch winery is Mmakgabo Helen Sebidi, whose work continually refers to African spiritualism, which has formed the core of her practice, and through her work. She communicates concepts of being African and how the removal of spiritual considerations will impact the values of those living in the modern world.
Visiting guests can explore in greater detail the ethos and inspiration of two prominent female South African artists whose captivating sculptures and paintings are displayed within the estate’s lodges and other prime spaces on the farm.
A transcendent sculptor, painter and printmaker, Deborah Bell is fascinated by the philosophies of ancient civilisations. Her work incorporates powerful totemic images and layered visual, symbolic references to past and present worlds. In her iconography, she draws from the Greco-Roman, Asian, Egyptian and African ethnographies and philosophies. Through her ‘Sentinel’ series, in particular, which is located at the Delaire Graff Estate Spa, her preoccupation with stillness and the shedding of attachment, and the ego is evident.
Welcoming guests who step foot inside the Owner’s Villa at Delaire Graff Estate, one of the most exclusive private residences in Southern Africa, is a striking bronze sculpture by Sebidi, entitled “She is Greeting”.
Growing up, Sebidi’s mother worked away in the city for much of her childhood, and so she lived with her grandmother, who taught her the values that would guide and sustain her life. These include channelling spirit back into the world through hard work, the commitment of the self to the community, and most of all, through acts of creativity – whether this be cooking, making mud walls, creating murals, making pots and calabashes, weaving, beading, dress-making, drawing, or painting.
Other notable female artists whose works are displayed across the Estate include Njideka Akunyile Crosby, Maggie Laubser, Irma Stern and Stefania Tejada. In South Africa, 9 August is heralded as Women’s Day – a tribute to the, more than, 20,000 women who marched to the Union Buildings on that day, in 1956, in protest against the extension of Pass Laws to women.
In honouring the two artists today, Delaire Graff sees the day as an opportunity to celebrate the strength, resilience, courage and compassion of women and their contribution to their communities, society, the arts and the country as a whole.
Mmakgabo Mmapula Helen Sebidi was born in 1943 in Marapyane, in what was then the Northern Transvaal (now Mpumalanga).
Sebidi has participated in many group and solo shows. She won the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year Award in 1989, the year after she won a Fulbright Scholarship. She was awarded the Vita Art Award in 1990, and the Silver Award of the Order of Ikhamanga in 2004. Her work is in many private and public collections in South Africa and abroad, including Iziko South African National Gallery; the Johannesburg Art Gallery, and the Smithsonian Institute.
Her work is represented in public and private collections around the world including the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY, USA; the Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA; the Hara Museum, Tokyo, Japan; and the IZIKO South African National Gallery, Cape Town. As well as a career as an artist, Bell has worked as a lecturer at various South African tertiary institutions, including the University of the Witwatersrand.
Ranked one of the most prestigious wineries in the world, Delaire Graff is a paragon of culture and natural beauty of its Cape Winelands setting. It is home to some of the most prized artistic works that breathe magnificence and charm to the farm, which is surrounded by a scenic landscape of mountains and contours of grapevines.
A hidden gem, the farm is owned by renowned diamantaire Laurence Graff OBE, whose artistic eye is manifested in the serenity of the place’s hospitality, cuisine, wine, art and spa. – Additional information from Delaire Graff
