Notes

“There are few things as gratifying as waking up to the smell of linseed oil and paint, and stumbling through the chaos of torn-up books and empty tubes with a freshly squeezed palette of colour in hand […] My house has evolved into a ramshackle painter’s studio.”¹

Four years after he boldly announced himself as a painter without showing any paintings on his 2006 debut solo exhibition in Johannesburg, Zander Blom presented his first show of paintings at Stevenson, Cape Town. Having tirelessly researched the legacy of western modernist painting, Blom quickly graduated from interested voyeur to accomplished painter. This early painting was produced at his former studio in Brixton, Johannesburg and formed part of a store of 31 oil and graphite paintings on Belgian linen shown at Stevenson. All Blom’s paintings are untitled and each is assigned an identifying number: this is his third painting in what has evolved into a shape-shifting body of abstract painting numbering over 1000 works. For the most part, Blom’s early paintings occupy a defined space within the frame of the canvas. The action is largely bounded and his brushwork instinctual; the mood throughout is ecstatic.

1. Zander Blom, quoted at www.stevenson.info: http://archive.stevenson.info/exhibitions/blom/index2010.htm

Exhibited

Michael Stevenson, Cape Town. Paintings. Drawings. Photos. 9 September to 16 October 2010.

Zander Blom's first solo exhibition at the gallery.

Literature

Sophie Perryer (ed.) (2010) Zander Blom: Paintings. Drawings, Photos. Cape Town: Michael Stevenson. Page 46 and illustrated in colour on page 17.

Sophie Perryer (ed.) (2013) Paintings: Volume I 2010-2012: Zander Blom, Cape Town: Stevenson. Illustrated in colour on page 196.