Notes

Jake Aikman is well known for his many portrayals of the sea and its coastal thresholds. This lot, which depicts Knysna, is a continuation of a style that Aikman introduced in his 2013 exhibition At the Quiet Limit. The exhibition included gossamer paintings of coastal landscapes and inlets inspired by his recent trips to Costa Rica and El Salvador, as well as billowing clouds from Concepción, a volcano in Nicaragua. Tonally restrained, his colour palette limited to blues, greens and greys, the seascape works yielded very little by way of detail. A phlegmatic painter rather than ecstatic recorder of experience, Aikman aims to solicit strong psychological responses from his viewers. A keen surfer, Aikman is well aware of the sea’s atavistic qualities. ‘You can’t tame the sea. You don’t ever feel secure in it.’¹ Aikman’s paintings aim to convey this vulnerability in the face of the sea’s enduring mystery.

Sean O’Toole

1. Mary Corrigall. (2017) ‘Painter swops the sea for land,’ Pretoria News, Tonight Section, 15 February.