Don’t all archi’s fancy themselves as artists at heart? And is the construction site not one of the most idea-fuelling and imagination-capturing scenario’s there is for us? The grit, the equipment, the precision and productivity (I’ll stop myself there)…
Julie Mayo, after 20 or so years on the Durban architectural scene, has made the jump into the “artist” category and has produced some beautiful and intriguing images from her site experience. Opening on Monday 24th January at artSpace Durban is her exhibition entitled The Art of the Construction Site.
ArtSpace is a fantastic gallery space in the industrial hub of Umgeni Road, Durban. If you’re in Durban, it’s a worthwhile visit.
This is what the curators had to say:
“For this body of work Mayo has used original digital photographs that she took during the construction stage of the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, South Africa and digitally manipulated them to create these stunning images that are imbued with her own sensitivity to colour, emotion and atmosphere. Working in Photoshop she has used computer technology as a contemporary artistic tool to decompose the original image, and through the process of sorting, layering and manipulating, the construction site has become her theatre.
She has choreographed the horizontal, the vertical and the angular. She has layered texture over texture, and kept to a limited palette to create these theatrical but ethereal spaces. Here and there a human figure emerges, seemingly insignificant but essential to the process, to emphasize the scale and dominance of the built forms.
Here the construction site is a metaphor for the journey that is life: her photographs have captured the process rather than an image of the end.”
artSPACE durban, 3 Millar Road (off Umgeni Road) Durban 4001 Tel: +27 (0)31-312-0793
Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm/Sat & Public Holidays 9am – 2pm
160 BULWER 
