Page 51 - Studio International - September 1965

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The subject matter of Skotnes·s work is not strictly abstract but Skotnes continued. 'The initial conception remains. Areas are
belongs to the field of organic anthropomorphism so the human elaborated or simplified but not changed. It is impossible to play
presence lurks in the shadows of the incisions on the wood. about with a cut-out area of wood. I have also discovered in these
When asked what has influenced his art. Skotnes replied: 'The incised paintings that I cut a line very much more accurately and
colours of Africa. but. as an European, I see the sensitive, bleached sensitively than I can draw it'.
colours and the pale ochres rather than the strident. saturated Skotnes prefers pale pigments to stark black and white. He says
primaries. I do large work because of the massiveness of the that black and white are foreign to the surface of the wood. He
landscape. My creation runs parallel with that of contemporary, noticed that even in the African burnt-wood technique the
disturbed African art because the African and I are nicely caught burnt-out lines are never black along the edges.
in the same mesh of circumstances. I do not take from the African So Skotnes uses oxides. and the powder of crushed stone for
directly, nor does he take from me. What actually happens is that soft whites. depending on his sensitivity, so that the total effect
the black artist and myself. a white artist in Africa. are driven by is very different from the bright earth colours Africans use when
the same artistic compulsions in parallel channels.' painting their walls.
Skotnes admitted that while that went for forms of expression. In terms of physical age, Cecil Skotnes at thirty-nine is young.
the African preferred. as of old. to work in three dimensions when In South Africa he belongs to the middle group of artists largely
he touched wood or stone. The African visualises his sculpture reponsible for the new unsettled art South of the Limpopo.
in three dimensions before he starts and only when the work is Skotnes is counted one of the top artists working in South
nearing completion he plays round merely with the details. Africa with others like Villa. Cattaneo. Baldinelli, Cecily Sash.
Skotnes. in technical contrast. prefers the two-dimensional Sydney Kumalo and Louis Maqhubela.
surface in low relief and in this two-dimensional approach he The further extensions Skotnes still has to make to his present
betrays his European origins. mature vision are awaited with interest for it is felt that the
His output is small by virtue of the medium and the size. but. discovery of himself through his 'incised paintings' suggests new
says Skotnes. 'For me the possibilities are endless·. aesthetic possibilities.
When asked if the medium of incising and painting wood was too The Africa of Skotnes-and all of us-is now in the jaws of fate
slow and lagged behind his generating ideas. Skotnes replied. ·1 and is an Africa that is being shaken the way a lion shakes its
get a feeling to deviate continuously, but I have forced myself to prey. It is deeply significant that Skotnes reveals in dead earnest
exploit a single theme to its death'. his angs1 of Africa. ■
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