Biography
Janet Solomon (b.1967) graduated from the universities of KwaZulu-Natal and the Witwatersrand, obtaining her MA in Fine Art with distinction.
Solomon’s confrontational works engage unflinchingly with environmental issues and human cultural relations with animals. The notion of the natural world interrupted and impacted is the eroded circumstance in which her subject finds it’s self.
Solomon’s work orbits around ideas of alienation, reduction of relation and its destructive consequences, and the susceptibility of the subject to dissociative forces. Solomon’s work is inscribed by a sense of loss of some precious quality in the world or self. Her works are filled with a haunting pathos, a sense of a curiously anti heroic, fragile beauty found in individuals’ struggle to come to grips with situations larger than themselves.
C.V.
EDUCATION
1985–1990:BA(FA)(Honours)with distinction and commendation,
University of KwaZulu Natal (Pietermaritzburg)
2010-2014: MA in Fine Arts with distinction, University of the Witwatersrand
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2015: Green Screen, Durban Art Gallery, Durban, KZN
2014: Green Screen, Origins Museum, Johannesburg, Gauteng
2002: In Search Of Lost Time, KZNSA Gallery, Durban, KZN
1997: Reclamation, KZNSA Gallery, Durban, KZN
1993: Deaths & Entrances, KZNSA Gallery, Durban, KZN
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2015: Slow Violence, GUS University Stellenbosch Art Gallery, Stellenbosch
2012: See-saw, Michaelis Lab, Cape Town
2011: The End, artSPACE Gallery, Durban
Twelve, KZNSA Gallery, Durban
2010: KZN Artists, Upstairs@Bamboo, Johannesburg
2009: Nivea Art Award, KZNSA Gallery, Durban (Finalist)
ALPOA, artSPACE Berlin, Berlin
Figure This, Durban University of Technology’s Art Gallery, Durban
2008: Formation, artSPACE Gallery, Durban
Diminutive, artSPACE Gallery, Durban
2007: Malleable, artSPACE Gallery, Durban
2005: Paean To Paint, artSPACE Gallery, Durban
1997: Images From The Edge, KZNSA Gallery, Durban
1996: Wrapped up, KZNSA Gallery, Durban
1995: Durban Redefined KZNSA Gallery, Durban (Gold award),
1994:Displacements: South African Works On Paper, Chicago, curated by David Bunn and Jane Taylor
1990: Standard Bank National Drawing Competition, travelled to 11 galleries nationally
1989: Journey, KZNSA Gallery, Durban
Mail Art From South Africa: A View From The Inside, Soho 20 Gallery, New York
1988: U.N.I.S.A. Clay Plus Exhibition, Unisa (Univ of SA) Art Gallery, Pretoria
Rolfes Student Art Competition, Durban
New Signatures, South African Association Of Arts, Pretoria
1987: A.P.S.A. (Association Of Potters Of S.A.) National Exhibition (Merit award)
COLLECTIONS
Durban University of Technology Art Gallery
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adamson, V., 2005. A community of artists: a photographic book of 106 KwaZulu Natal artists in their studios and workplaces; Durban: KwaZulu Natal Society of Arts.
Solomon, J., 2014. Green Screen. Cape Town: Hansa Prints