VISUAL ART

BAT CO-ORDINATORS

With few art exhibition spaces available in Durban, artists have not had many options from which to choose, especially artists exhibiting for the first time.

The BAT Centre has been partly respon-sible for bringing hitherto unknown artists into the exhibition arena and pro-viding opportunities for them to exhibit and try out new works in a less formal exhibition environment.

The BAT Centre has two exhibition spaces - the Upstairs Gallery for more established artists and the smaller Democratic Gallery for first-time or experimental exhibitions.

C0-ORDINATORS

The three part-time BAT co-ordinators, Njabulo Hlongwane, Brendon Bussy and Thami Jali are all artists with formal arts training. Their job is to ensure that the art shown at the BAT Centre is repre-sentative of the artistic community at large. They are also required to ferret out new artists, run the centre's visual arts studio which is home to 10 artists and ensure that the exhibitions and artists are properly documented.

Contact the BAT visual art co-ordinators at any BAT art opening or by phoning 32-04.

TREVOR MAKHOBA

Trevor Makhoba, the winner of this year's Standard Bank Young Artist Award for visual art, is a self-taught artist who was born in Cato Manor, Durban, in 1956.

The travelling exhibition of his work comes direct from the Standard Bank National Arts Festival to the Tatham Art Gallery in Pietermaritzburg to form part of the main programme of the 1996 Maritzburg Arts Festival.

TALENTED

Trevor Makhoba will run a two-day guest artist project with talented local artists on August 14 and 15 to explore the ways in which an artist arrives at the thematic content of his work and how this is translated into pictorial terms.

The Trevor Makhoba exhibition opens on August 7 and runs until September 8. Trevor will conduct a public tour on August 15 at 10h30. A sign-interpreted tour for the deaf and hard of hearing will take place on August 24 at 10h30.

Anyone interested in participating in the workshops should contact 0331:42-1804.

CYBERCYCLONE

Artist Robin Opperman has launched Cybercyclone onto the Internet.

Although the page is fairly small, it should grow to one of importance.

One of the aims is to provide art gallery space and so get some of Durban's art on the Internet.

Anyone wishing to post his work on the page should E-Mail it to Robin at michaelm@iafrica.com or post it to him c/o Ningizimu School, PO Box 31123, Merebank, 4059.

As Robin accumulates pieces, he will change the work in the galleries on a more frequent basis.

Visit the site in cyberspace at http://goofy.iafrica.com/~michaelm.

RENATE SCHWARZ

With computer graphics increasingly used to generate images and illustrations for the advertising and publication indus-tries, well-known illustrator Renate Schwarz is much in demand.

Her largest public commission is a 180cm x 160cm researched and crafted map of Africa in the foyer of M-Net's headquarters in Randburg. She meticu-lously researched the design which includes masks and animals as well as the costumes in which the dolls representing the African countries are dressed. She also had to blend elements of the building's architecture.

Word of Renate's unique art form is spreading and time will no doubt see her "box pictures" enhancing the walls of corporations, hotels and homes through-out the country.

INSTRUMENTS EXHIBIT

The BAT Centre with Poonans and Geoffrey Tracey will host an exhibition of interesting musical instruments to supplement the JPS Indian Ocean Jazz Festival. Titled Art to Music it also includes a series of photographs and runs in the Democratic Gallery from August 8 to 11.