Outlines, Bylines and Pickup Lines - an exhibition review for Revolution Daily

(See the real thing here or just keep scrollin' scrollin' scrollin' scrollin')

So it was the first week of January and as wistfully expected, there wasn’t much going down in Jozi. No crazy-big parties. Bob Rocks was still closed. We were all broke. We are all still broke. What’s a girl to do? I know! How ‘bout not get wasted and choo-choo-train dance to electro and go to this little gem instead?

Enter: Outline, an exhibition by Koos Groenewald.





I arrived at Wolves on the opening night, expecting to see some familiar faces but for the most part, assumed everyone was still on holiday. I was wrong. Wolves may not be a big place, but it was packed with freshly tanned, eager-eyed Jozinis, slapping their jaws together with such vigor that it actually felt good to be back.


Outline was more than an art exhibition – it was a play date. It felt right. So did the niche-brewed beer. And Wolves, set in the heart of Illovo, Jo’burg, was the perfect backdrop for Koos’ quirky, playful illustrations.




Koos’ style is fun and reminds me a little of Quentin Blake’s sprawled illustrations from Roald Dahl novels – naughty, irreverent, cheeky. The character and mischievousness in the faces of his animals, human-like expressions at that, have a way of making you grin. And the human faces? Well, they’re the kind of humans I want to make friends with. There’s a crazy energy to Koos’ childlike scrawls, something dangerous.




But let’s just get one thing straight; there is a difference between ‘childlike’ and ‘childish’. The former is awesome and imaginative, naïve in a way that suggests zero ego and hardened cynicism. Childish is just, well, silly and rudimentary. Koos’ work is certainly not the latter.The childlike element might also have something to do with the fact that these illustrations were created from one line.




One line.




Yup, like that game where you put pencil to paper, freely scribble some lines, create a shape then ask, ‘What is it?’ This is a game I’d like to play but can swiftly confirm would need labels and descriptors. I envy kids who can, without a doubt in their minds, create. Little artists making little metanarratives in crayon. That’s basically every kid. That was me as a young lass. That’s Koos Groenewald.





Review by Lauren Bow and photographs by Chris Corbett.


The exhibition runs until 31 January, so best you come play. Check out the Facebook event here and see more from Koos here.

Calling a Spade a Spade (well, trying to).

Vegetarian. Check.

Peta 'Go Veg' stickers we had in our militant varsity veg days. How d'ya like them pixels? 

Lactose and gluten intolerant. Check? Check?

Shit.


Let me introduce you to the Grinch Who Ate Christmas. That's usually me. In fact, that was me a few days ago. But how do you be said Grinch when you're lactose AND gluten intolerant AND in the running for being a veg going on eight years?! All I could think was: "Christmas is going to suck this year". Suck and bloat.


And it did.


Labeling stuff is tiring but it's so much easier to sum up your dietary choices/prohibitions in one word. I'm a ... 

(ponce?)


Done.
People then nod in a farce of understanding but generally leave it. But when you've got to go into some detail about it, I'm talking 3 minutes worth, you suddenly become very aware of how tit you sound.


The vegetarian restrictions I've willingly embraced 'cause they're self-imposed, my little metanarrative I can follow in a black and white fashion, but the latter is a recent discovery (after almost a year of feeling shit) and have been, shall we say, bestowed on me which naturally, I want to rebel against. 


But I'm rebelling against myself. How counter-intuitive and adolescent 'punk' of me. I might as well koki the anarchy 'A' on my shoes and wear a Cliche Guevara tee.

Eating is cheating.
In my case, this is almost every meal and I won't start feeling better until I get hardcore with my diet. Duh, Lauren.


Or change my diet? Does this mean a paradigm shift in belief and morals?

Obey stencil collage on paper

We can directly control what we put in our mouths... uh, in most cases. Let me rephrase, we can control what FOOD we put in our mouths. Yet this is one of the hardest challenges I have yet faced. What a ridiculous middle class, bourgeois challenge to have. I make me sick. Literally.

Lame, no one likes that weird food girl who sits wistfully at dinner, can't eat anything off the menu and talks about her restricted diet incessantly all evening (ala Jozi preachy vegan of the mid-2000s). Or quietly eats all the 'poison' food and then complains about the ensuing pain. But is packing your own quinoa really the answer? I've lost cool points just thinking about it (and I lynched for those points). 

Besides, that involves forward planning and doesn't fit into my self-fancied 'easy breezy-anything goes' lifestyle of eating out tons. This might also have something to do with being lazy and not loving cooking. But I prefer the former.


I'm killing myself, softly, while getting more soft around the edges.
Hooray. You are what you eat I guess, and I clearly went out and swallowed a beach ball.


Time to get serious. As serious as words on a digital page on a blog that seven people follow.


Discovering you're lactose and/or gluten intolerant is like a break up. A break up with a lover; a delicious cheesy, pasta, bread and butter sort of lover you'll get fat for. When you've cut out meat, cheese becomes more than your lover, it becomes your religion. I've been in the denial phase (not to mention grief and anger) for so long and I'm proud to report that last week, I circled the 'acceptance' stage. I know this because I bought not one, but TWO allergy-free cookbooks. BIG step for me (especially considering I don't cook). Also, they were on special.

One big step, yes, but it's more about the baby steps, as in WTF am I doing?! Let's see how this goes, I'll take it one step at a time. And again with the steps. Maybe I should throw some exercise in there while I'm at it. And some fish.