"My work questions photography by capturing images that can never be created again, while exploring process and repetition as meditative instruments in art making."
Mariëtte Kotzé is a Cape Town-based artist working in alternative photography and ink-wash painting. She graduated from the Ruth Prowse School of Art in 2015, with a degree in interior design.
Kotzé's work focusses on the ephemeral concept of time by allowing the viewer to appreciate the transient moment in full, by looking closer. She then shifts the focus towards the beauty of accumulated time, where the creative journey and process become more important than the end product. A transient moment is captured on the paper or lens surface, where ink and various translucent fluids are intermixed. The results of these reactions are then digitally captured, recording the movement of the pigmented molecules breaking up, each with its own distinct character. Focusing on the activity of the artistic process, Kotzé creates her own internal landscapes through digitizing ink wash movements with a macro lens.
"My work questions photography by capturing images that can never be created again, while exploring process and repetition as meditative instruments in art making. The themes of my work are determined by the unpremeditated end result. When I started out using this technique, it was mainly about the process and experimenting. Currently, looking at the works I have so far created, all abstract in definition, I am able to divide them into categories, differentiating between abstract objects, landscape-looking spaces, earth textures, and colourful compositions that resemble a mood or song."
