BIOGRAPHY
ELIZE VOSSGÄTTER
(b. 1981 Johannesburg, South Africa)
Elize Vossgätter’s work is concerned with our unnatural relationship to the natural environment.
Her primary medium is wax, impregnated with pigment and then worked onto the canvas. The constant tension between the organic and inorganic is palpable. Gouging into the multilayered and multicoloured wax sediment – an exercise in carving – the outcome is a surface structure reminiscent of a relief: a testament to sensual organic forms which evoke the physical laws of the natural world, from which she draws her visual vocabulary.
Recent bodies of work include ‘Natural Order’ and ‘Artificial Selection’. They focus on our failing cultural, political and environmental structures and the flux of finding a new balance in this post-natural world. She completed her Masters in Fine Art at Michaelis (University of Cape Town) in 2023.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 Gutter Pop II, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 gutter pop, MFA show, Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town, South Africa
2022 Liminal Space, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa
2021 Artificial Selection, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2020 Natural Order, part of the Cubicle Series, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2017 limp, Smith Studio, Cape Town, South Africa
2015 In the end we’re all to blame, Commune1, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 Once there was, and once there was not, AVA, Cape Town, South Africa
2012 Sterntaler, AVA, Cape Town, South Africa
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 Diepe Grond (Attaqualand), curated by Liza Grobler, Klein Karoo National Arts Festival, Oudtshoorn, SA
2024 Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2023 What I Feel When I Think About The Cosmos, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
Oddkin, Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town, South Africa
Under-water-love, Eigen + Art pop-up, Under Projects, Cape Town, South Africa
The Invisible Thread, AVA, Cape Town, South Africa
The Other’s Warmth, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2022 Spring, group show, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
Dak’art, biennale of contemporary African art, Dakar, Senegal
Things I’d like to remember, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2021 Summer 2021, Everard Read, London, UK
Oasis: 25th anniversary, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2020 Us, digital exhibition, Everard Read, South Africa
STILL, digital exhibition, Everard Read, South Africa & UK
win/win, exhibition of the official acquisitions of the State of Saxony, Leipzig, Germany
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, South Africa
2019 Verorten/ Entorten, Projektwohnung, Krudebude, Leipzig, Germany
Winter, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Zeitgleich/Zeitseichen, PingPong Kunstraum, Leipzig, Germany
Voila, Halle 14, Leipzig, Germany
2018 Home for the holidays, Summer Show, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
2017 Buttersäure Senf, Pilotenkueche, Leipzig, Germany
BiPolar gallery, Leipzig, Germany
Another Antipodes Urban Axis Exhibition, Freemantle, Australia
2016 Surface / Subtext, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa
Open Studios, Art Omi, New York, USA
AKAA, with Smith Studio, Paris, France
Cape Town Art Fair, with Smith Studio, ‘The Conservationist’s Dream’
2015 Summer show, Everard Read gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Two, Smith Studio, Cape Town, South Africa
1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, with Qubeka Bead Studio, London, UK
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Commune, Cape Town, South Africa
2014 Golden Haze, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa
Rust en Vrede, Cape Town, South Africa
2013 Summer show , Casa Labia, Cape Town, South Africa
One in a Million, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa
Archives and Collection, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa
2012 I’d rather be Swimming, Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa
Impressions and Responses, Galerie Miz, Istanbul, Turkey
Our Fathers, AVA, Cape Town, South Africa
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with AVA, Cape Town, South Africa
Joburg Fringe, Johannesburg, South Africa
2010 Amani Festival of Visual Arts, Khayelitsha, South Africa
Vuleka Art competition and exhibition, Belville, South Africa
Conceptual Matters & Matters Conceptual, Erdmann Contemporary, Cape Town, South Africa
RESIDENCIES
June-Sept 2017 Pilotenkueche, Leipzig
June-July 2016 Art Omi, New York State
June-July 2012 Galeriremiz, Istanbul
