Opening at artSPACE durban on September 15 at 18h00 are an exhibition of paintings by Caroline Birch and an installation by Pam Morgan.

The driving force behind Caroline Birch’s body of paintings is the quality of life, or that which is quick (alive) in ordinary things, people and objects. The subjects might appear arbitrary but were chosen because they contain this 'essence of life' and are, in a way, all portraits. The body of work is the result of the process of being a painter and creating paintings but all the while being aware of capturing those things that one cannot 'see'.

Pamela Morgan recently completed her Advanced Diploma in Visual Art 2003. As a BA Visual Arts graduate from Unisa, she presented her installation for the final examination and achieved a distinction. The works presented are the visual outcome of an intensely felt, deeply internalised exploration of childhood events that shaped her own life, combined with her current concerns about adult influence and intervention in the lives of children in South Africa today.

“Parental abuse in the home as well as nefarious adult behaviour towards the weakest and most vulnerable members of society abounds in our country,” she says. “When children may be abused, raped and shot in their homes and schools, abducted on streets and in playgrounds and sodomised in churches, where is a safe haven for them? Adults make the decisions.”

The exhibitions run until October 2.