Cape Town’s Stevenson Gallery presents « Déjà Vu », through June 25, 2022, Neo Matloga most memorable independent exhibition that moves away from the artistic and interconnected narratives that described his previous work. All else being equal, Neo Matloga new works are individual scenes that open up another section of formal trial and error.
The artist who uses more surface and more three-dimensionality on the outer layer of each artwork, regardless of the level, but for whom painting was once the framework of composition, and now collage the platform of painting, plays with all the components proper to art, wondering where it might go.
Unlike the works made in her Amsterdam studio over the past year – exhibited at the Stroom Den Haag in the Netherlands and the Marta Herford Museum for Art in Germany – the paintings in « Déjà Vu » were made at sunset in her studio in Mamaila, Limpopo, rehearsing the creation of “Back of the Moon,” her 2020 exhibition in Johannesburg.
Regardless, after drawing motivation from plays, dramas and commercials, Neo Matloga says his new pieces are made and installed in this snapshot of everyday existence.
Neo Matloga new works are an augmentation of his interest in image making and a source for his interest in performance. While exploring a growing vocabulary of figuration, he accentuates the advancement of miniature stories that are deeply charged with tension.