Martine Jackson and Galia Gluckman had admired each other’s work from a distance before they were introduced two years ago, and now they have collaborated on a series of striking pots, coiled by Jackson and painted by Gluckman. Each piece in the collaboration is characterised by its organic shape and eye-catching, detailed artwork – demonstrating both artists' ability to capture simultaneously disorder and balance.
“I dreamed of doing a collaboration,” says Jackson. “I felt our works complemented each other. I broached the subject and the rest is history.”
Gluckman, whose medium of choice is pigment ink on cotton paper and collage, was intrigued by the possibility of working on 3D form: “I wanted to see creatively what would be born out of a collaboration [with Jackson]. Her work is organic and intuitive and I relate to those qualities in her work as well as her sincere need to be creative. It is ‘air’ for her, just as it is for me.”
Both women have an intrinsic appreciation of hand-crafted design. “I am drawn to Galia's painstaking application of paper, and the way it comes together to form a balanced and intriguing composition, " says Jackson. "Most of my work is adorned with repetitive pattern which enhances the forms, and therefore I relate to and appreciate her method.”
Jackson graduated from the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2000 and now works in a ceramic studio established in the 1970s by her mother, the highly regarded Barbara Jackson. Her grandfather, Morris Adler, was also a sculptor.
“My work is my life blood,” says Jackson. “It connects me to myself, my family and people around me. I started working with clay in my late mother's studio from the age of five. Apart from clay, the weekends were spent drawing, painting, welding, casting and assisting both my mom, and stepmom, in whatever creation they were busy with. Art was always part of my life and remains part of my life today."
Jackson's work is influenced by nature: "the way the mountain curves and the textures of the boulders inspire me".
Gluckman produces intensely detailed, large-scale artworks using pigment ink on cotton paper and collage. “Through my work I explore the idea of balance versus imbalance in life and how easily one loses balance: the push and pull of life and internal friction when one is not in balance,” she says.
Gluckman qualified as a fashion designer working in both London and New York before returning to fine art and moving to Cape Town in 2010, where she finds life a little more laidback.
"My experience in South Africa (specifically Cape Town), has been that networking is more casual and therefore easier than in New York,” says Gluckman. “The creative environment here in South Africa is a more informal environment with less structure than London and New York.”
A background in fashion and patternmaking has permeated the way Gluckman expresses herself, and has influenced the way she uses lines and angles in her pieces.
Both Gluckman and Jackson hope that this collaboration will be the first of many.
The collaborative collection will be exhibited at STILL LIFE from 25 February to 1 March.
