CORPUS COLLOSSUS
A Man's World, 2006. Chris Diedericks.
Chris Diedericks,
Merwelene van der Merwe
Angus Taylor
27 August – 16 September 2006
Gordart Gallery, Melville, Johannesburg
Corpus Collossus is basically three exhibitions under one roof at Gordart Gallery, 78 Third Street, Melville from 27 August to 16 September 2006. The three artists showing their most recent work are Chris Diedericks, Merwelene van der Merwe and Angus Taylor. The title was chosen due to all three artists’ intense fascination with the human body. The meaning of the title, loosely translated from the Latin is “huge/ colossal/ majestic body”.
The work shown here is that of Chris Diedericks.
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PRESS RELEASE
My latest works still focus on masculinity, but in this specific body of work, I specifically investigate homophobia, death, friendship, grief and illness. I have tried to overlay images, emotions, feelings and sensations iconically in textured juxtapositions of visual experiences. These concepts are coalesced and separated continuously in my work. As an artist working in almost all visual art media, specifically my interest in photography and printmaking are explored in my work for Corpus Collossus. I am fascinated by an interdisciplinary approach in my work and am always searching for new solutions – it is an integral part of my personal creative process. I have failed my own process and myself if I merely regurgitate former imagery. I never want two shows to “look” the same.
It is also the first time working with Silvertone International, a fine art printing company specialising in archival pigment printing and hand-printed photography. My digital prints are now of an archival quality printed on cotton paper. Finally, this new exiting way of making prints, is proudly taking its rightful place alongside traditional methods like etching and lithography.
My work is often a visual blow carefully calculated to disturb and calm at the same time. I almost always try to include irony and humour in my work and hope to grip the viewer’ imagination by using this strategy. Internal struggles and ongoing cultural battles are visually documented in my work, and become a narrative for my attempt to make a meaningful difference in the mostly inexorable (and arguably conservative) society in our country. My specific interest in South African society’s fear of Difference is illustrated in works such as Barren Earth. The gripping emotional effects of illness, death and grief, are explored in the in the St Sebastian series; without being literal. The connections between individual images on Corpus Collossus are subjective, even psychological, and I like juggling the demands made by the work, which often shifts my work into a narrative mode.
Chris Diedericks
June 2006
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