Notes

In the present lot, Kevin Roberts invites viewers into a surreal tableau where the whimsical and the unsettling intersect. This mixed-media painting captures the tension between artifice and nature, highlighting the fragility of human constructs in the face of elemental forces.

At first glance, the scene appears almost folkloric – a woman seated atop a rudimentary horse-drawn carriage against a mountainous landscape. However, closer inspection reveals deliberate incongruities that define Roberts’ work. The carriage is no elegant conveyance but a makeshift trolley topped with a red shipping pallet. Its utilitarian nature is contradicted by the upward-pointing arrows emblazoned on the crate – symbols of direction that become disorienting in their multiplicity, recalling Duchamp’s fascination with the absurdity of logic and the subversion of functional forms.

The woman on the carriage draws immediate attention. Her visage recalls the ethereal beauty of pre-Raphaelite heroines, her dark hair framing a face both enigmatic and confrontational. However, Roberts departs from pure homage by embedding the woman in an anachronistic setting. She peers directly at the viewer from behind a shower curtain adorned with a bird motif – an object of mundane domesticity that disrupts the romanticism of her appearance.

The chestnut horse is clad in a mustard coloured halter and leather bridle, pieced together with wire, suggesting ingenuity born of necessity while also evoking fragility. The horse’s eye coverings, reminiscent of blinders used to focus draft animals, introduce an element of ambiguity: does the animal wear them for protection, or is it blinded to the direction of its journey? The reins, crafted from precariously tied red ribbons, symbolise a tenuous connection between human intention and natural force. The sparrow-like bird that holds the ribbons aloft,
echoing the bird motif on the curtain, introduces a device of avian guidance that borders on the mythical, evoking symbols of freedom and divine intervention found in Western and Eastern art traditions.

The present lot deftly combines elements of realism and surrealism, crafting a narrative that feels simultaneously rooted in history and adrift
in the present. The work invites multiple readings: it is at once a meditation on the fragility of human endeavour, a celebration of the resilience of improvised beauty, and a reflection on our uneasy relationship with the natural world. The central figures – the lady, the horse, and the sparrow – exist in a delicate, interconnected balance, one that may be as fleeting as the ribbons that bind them together.

Ingrid Stevens (no date) Art.co.za, Kevin Roberts, online, https://www.art.co.za/kevinroberts/about.php, accessed 20 January 2024.