A Durban-based artist, Michael Croeser will present five large scale charcoal drawings produced in the past two years. These hard-edged monochrome works were developed from small-scale collages comprising contradictory and unrelated elements, crude and absurd pastiches of images and meanings. Culled from an archive of old magazines and postcards (mass media debris of sorts), these collages were meticulously drawn and rendered on a large scale – and look like humongous high contrast photocopies from a distance.

Croeser’s sensibility is anarchic and melancholic. He is influenced by dreams and daydreams, and get his ideas sometimes sitting around doing nothing. He states “I don’t read the papers or watch television or pay much attention to current media or trends, except for browsing through magazines at CNA at closing time”. Other references in his work include electron microscopic images and comic art.

Although Croeser states further that “images speak for themselves”, he acts as an interpreter seeking meaning in the barrage of imagery surrounding us. The way he randomly grabs these and process it into eloquent works of art speak of a sophisticated sensibility to interpret and recreate meaning where little existed before.

Although Croeser states further that “images speak for themselves”, he acts as an interpreter seeking meaning in the barrage of imagery surrounding us. The way he randomly grabs these and process it into eloquent works of art speak of a sophisticated sensibility to interpret and recreate meaning where little existed before.