Joachim Schönfeldt’s Exhibition at Nel: The New Vision of the Vernacular
Nel Gallery, a South African art gallery dedicated to increasing the outreach and visibility of local talent, is honored to announce the opening of a new solo exhibition by Joachim Schönfeldt. This time, the renowned contemporary South African artist, known for his deep feel of African history and cultural dynamics, uplifts the local vernacular to reveal its use as a cultural tool of resistance to colonial reality. The exhibition titled “Die Sêgoed van Maria en Martha James” (translated as “The Sayings of Maria and Martha James”) will be on display at Nel Gallery from April 3 to April 25, 2025, welcoming all fans of contemporary South African art to embrace the artist’s unique vision of the vernacular.
About Joachim Schönfeldt
Joachim Schönfeldt is an established South African artist who is well-recognized on the international art stage. He was born in 1958 in Tshwane, South Africa, but spent his childhood years in Namibia. The artist returned to South Africa in the 1980s to study art in Johannesburg. After graduation, Schönfeldt dealt with research on old African art and became a full-time artist in 1988.
Joachim Schönfeldt is best known for his signature themes of multiple-headed animals and South African iconography. He creates prints, paintings, and sculptures, which have been displayed at many notable venues, including the Venice Biennale in 1993 and 2015 and the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2011. Schönfeldt’s works have found high acclaim from notable figures in art, such as the late Okwui Enwezor, an internationally established art critic and art history expert.
Joachim Schönfeldt’s Vision of the Vernacular
The exhibition shares Schönfeldt’s tribute to the Cape vernacular sayings he used to hear from Maria and Martha, twin domestic workers who were employed at his household in the 1960s and 1970s. The women came from the Northern Cape and belonged to an ethnic group they called “Coloureds.” Their sayings, though transcending the linguistic norm, were a rich source of reflections on the subjects of ancestry, social hierarchy, and gender relations.
Often taking the form of subversive expressions, the vernacular revealed the complex colonial past of the region, embodied in the cultural and linguistic products of local residents. The artist approached the visualization of this vernacular heritage in a carefully planned manner by using text as the primary imagery for cultural expression. This way, Schönfeldt’s exhibition of hand-engraved woodwork and hand-printed graphic works offers a new vision of the vernacular as a cultural tool of self-expression, protest, and embodiment of colonial trauma.