Provenance

Clive van den Berg and Rocco de Villiers Collection.

Notes

The style of Paul Edmunds’ phenomenal work, Surface, can best be described as maximal minimalism. Several layers of closely registered triangular cut-outs on large-scale sheets of paper articulate a surface, using tone and depth in a striking manner. Edmunds employs a process of working that almost inevitably includes a layering of physical activity that builds upon simple repetitive actions, one upon another, until individual units coalesce to form another whole. Says Virginia MacKenny, ‘Edmunds’ near monochromatic palette, plus his concern with the materiality of things, might prompt one to view him as a latter-day minimalist. However, he lacks the sensibility of a modernist intent on proving the autonomy of his products. His almost neo-platonic fascination with geometry and the plotting of points across both twodimensional surfaces and three-dimensional spaces indicates, perhaps, a belief that, despite the apparent chaos lies a matrix of order’.¹

¹ Virginia McKenny (2004) Paul Edmunds, 10 Years 100 Artists: Art in a Democratic South Africa, page 106.