Opening at the KZNSA Gallery on April 1 is Skin Markings, an exhibition of works on waxed tissue paper by Andrew Verster.

One of Durban’s most highly respected artists, Andrew Verster was among five finalists in the highly prestigious Sasol Wax Art Award, 2007, for which he created a monumental, suspended installation of panels of wax-impregnated tissue paper. Applied with a hot iron, the wax transforms the tissue paper into a translucent material.

In effect, the hot wax is used to laminate layers of paper together into sheets that – when stained and marked with coffee, tea, turmeric and ink – adopt the look and feel of old parchment. The panels form a maze, and visitors have to negotiate their way through, via a number of possible paths. It is this work that will be installed as Skin Markings.

The artist writes that “Skin is one of the ideas behind these works – memories of holding the mummified hand of a twelfth century Irish knight in Dublin, preserved in a tomb dug from the cork saturated earth, of drawings I did of Inca mummies trussed in the foetal position in the Cusco Museum, and more recently my researches in local tattoo parlours of the intricacies of this revived art.

“Lurking in my mind are other, sinister associations which the word ‘skin’ conjures … associations with reliquaries where a holy piece of body is enshrined – memories of seeing a piece of Mary Magdalene’s neck in Vezelay, and other preserved remnants … The skin-like quality of the installation, and the tattoo marks, refers simultaneously to the exterior body and to internal markings; the works provide a bridge between interior and exterior space – the private and the public.”

Liam Magner, a member of the popular Neon Anthems, will introduce the exhibition at 18h00 on April 1, thereafter the exhibition runs until April 20.

For more information contact the KZNSA Gallery curator Brenton Maart on 031 202 3686, fax 031 201-8051 or email: curator@kznsagallery.co.za