Notes

“Human beings become puppets and animals become like people, until it becomes difficult in this world of dancing and performing to distinguish the reality from the dream and the fantasy”. —Amanda Botha¹

The circus – a recurring subject within Botha’s arsenal of work is owed to his involvement with the Zip Zap Circus group in 1971. Before that, Botha lived in Bloemfontein where he trained at the Free State Technical Collage (1964 – 1967). It was here where he quickly gained recognition for his mature execution of work which rapidly altered his trajectory as an artist under the strictures of the Afrikaans community that he grew up in, despised and ultimately proved to ripen his sense of the illogical and degenerate state of the Apartheid system.² Surface’s infused with humour and political commentary is what occupies the oeuvre of Hardy Botha. Figures, buildings and animals are placed in whirls of feverish activity, which, at first glance, reference a particular kind of innocence owed to childhood that Botha has marked with an uncanny sense of joy. The circus is a prominent theme in Botha’s world and his world is occupied with clowns and other freakish elements, some of which float in a boundless and gloomy fantasy. It is a world where trickery and illusion precede gravity and consequently, the world has lost its substance.

The raised and gestural application of paint on the landscape of Kaapse Karnival (lot 49) charges the canvas with movement and life, a common characteristic within Botha’s work. There is a softer and blended application of paint in Seance (lot 212), which features an ensemble of figures and objects billowed up as if by some magic trick that dominates the canvas. The shades and tones that make up an unknown landscape in the background of the canvas fade away as it is dominated by tints and hues that make up the foreground creating the sense of a theatre spotlight, perhaps a nod to the world being a stage and we are its performers?

^1. Oliewenhuis Art Museum (2008) Hardy Botha:Retrospective Exhibition (1975-2008), exhibition catalogue, Bloemfontein: Oliewenhuis ArtMuseum.
^2. Oliewenhuis Art Museum (2008) Hardy Botha: Retrospective Exhibition (1975-2008), exhibition catalogue, Bloemfontein: Oliewenhuis Art Museum.

Provenance

Dr Matthys Johannes Strydom Family Collection.