Nicky Marais

Her paring down of objects to simple visual forms unpicks their functional overdetermination and reinstates them as aesthetic objects. Turnstiles, gravestones, tunnels, doorways and temples have been sources of inspiration for her, and their frequent repetition calls on us to find the simplest connections between them. At a foundational level, Marais is interested in these shapes as thresholds and liminal spaces, whether between one place and another or between everyday life and the spiritual realm. She engages with geometric abstraction, locating it in the everyday and suggesting that practices of looking and making are always entangled with the materiality of the world.

Marais has had solo exhibitions at the National Art Gallery of Namibia and at Guns & Rain in Johannesburg, and has exhibited in group shows in Namibia, South Africa, Germany, the United Kingdom and Austria. Though she has shown her work extensively in Namibia, she remains largely under-recognised outside of her home country.