The Unseen - White River Gallery

2 Person Show (with Cyril Chiburre), 14 September - 13 October 2024

The Unseen is a dialogue between the artworks of Cyril Chiburre and Simon Attwood, two young artists based in Mpumalanga. The environment and animals are a central linking theme in both Chiburre and Attwood’s artworks. In this exhibition artists reflect on unseen, overlooked and hidden aspects of their immediate environments. Chiburre tackles issues affecting his community and issues that prevail, but that are also not openly not spoken about. Attwood’s body of work delves into landscapes that hold layered stories, histories and creatures that remain hidden from view. This includes trees from remote inaccessible mountain tops, imagery from ancient rock paintings, undescribed plant species and nocturnal animals.

Artist Statement: My artworks are an extension of adventures into the hills of Mpumalanga, where rock shelters and trees bear witness to the flow of time. I focus on easily overlooked elements of my local environment for subject matter. Creatures that hide from sight, faded rock paintings, undescribed plant species and remote inaccessible mountaintops. For this body of work, I have focused on using trees and small easily missed creatures to embed stories and ideas. The dead animals I have depicted are usually taken as repulsive and kept out of our minds. A dead serval on the side of the road fades into the surrounding veldt as it decomposes, but is still stunning despite being lifeless. I try to look closely at these creatures and take in details that regularly go by unseen. It is a way of paying tribute to and appreciating something that we have smacked off the side of the road and try not to think about. The trees also contain some of these creatures and other unseen elements. Hidden images that tie in meaning without becoming the focal point. Process and materials are fundamental to me, and the charcoal that I use in my drawings is made from trees that I carbonise in a brick kiln I made. Chiburre has made use of this charcoal in his drawings too.