METAMORPHOSIS 2025: Ingrid Uys & Elli Wahl

Metamorphosis

convert / transFIGURE / transFORM / transMOGRIFY / transMUTE / transPOSE

A duo exhibition by Ingrid Uys & Elli Wahl

Transformation lies at the heart of this exhibition — not as a single act, but as an unfolding continuum. In Metamorphosis, two South African artists, Ingrid Uys and Elli Wahl, explore the shifting interplay between light and dark, between becoming and being, between the known and the not-yet-formed.

Uys approaches metamorphosis through light — both as subject and as material. Working in oil on perspex, paper, and canvas, her paintings hold space for reflection and shadow, transparency and opacity. Each surface becomes an embodiment of identity in flux. Inspired by the fragility of wings and the stained glass of sacred spaces, she reimagines the feminine self as luminous and resilient. Moths and butterflies recur as emblems of endurance and transformation, their wings carrying the layered stories of womanhood: mother, artist, self — creatures of light drawn through darkness.

Wahl’s paintings, by contrast, begin in darkness — in abstraction, gesture, and the unruly pull of paint. From this deep ground, she works toward illumination, revealing form through erasure, light, and the slow emergence of being. Her figures and dung beetles inhabit a state of flux: human and mythic, fragile yet enduring. The African dung beetle, Scarabaeus satyrus, guided by the stars of the Milky Way, becomes both symbol and companion — a quiet echo of Kafka’s transformation, yet also its redemption. Where Kafka’s metamorphosis isolates, Wahl’s seeks connection: an acceptance of the perpetual in-between, the beauty of becoming through shadow and light.

Together, Uys and Wahl create a dialogue of opposites — illumination and obscurity, transparency and density, fragility and persistence. Metamorphosis becomes a meditation on change itself, an invitation to see transformation not as an ending, but as a continuous unfolding — a way of being in light, and in darkness.