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LIEN BOTHA

Born in Gauteng, South Africa in 1961. Lien Botha obtained a Bachelor of Art degree in Languages from the University of Pretoria and then worked as a press photographer for the newspaper Die Beeld before moving to Cape Town in 1984. In 1988 she obtained a Bachelor of Fine Art, majoring in Painting, form the Michaelis School, University of Cape Town.

Since that time Botha has participated in more than fifty group exhibitions nationally and eleven internationally and has held several solo exhibitions. In 1997 she was chosen as the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year and her exhibition Boxing Days toured the country. She has curated many exhibitions, including Bloedlyn and Invincibles in 1999.

Her latest one-person exhibitions were:
2006: Amendment: The Photographer’s Gallery, Cape Town
2005: Safari: MC2a, Bordeaux, France
2004: Safari: KKNK, Oudtshoorn
2002: Radio Maria: Castle, Cape Town and SACI, Palazzo dei Cartelloni, Florence
1997/8: Boxing Days: Grahamstown

Over the past ten years she has produced consistent bodies of work including The Washing Line (from Faultlines at the Castle, Cape Town, 1996).

Her word is represented in major collections throughout South Africa as well as in private collections locally and abroad. Articles and Reviews on her work have appeared in a wide range of publications.

Lien Botha uses both her own photographic material as well as that of others for her photographic work, and places them in relation to the South African landscape. In this way the artist demonstrates her ability to project fear-instilling focus on nature. Her subjects are often uncomfortable but never sensational. Although these are moved from human suffering, poverty and brutality, they are still shown with the same eye to detail. Botha’s work challenges the viewer to face the terrible as well as the beautiful aspects of South Africa.

The works shown on this website are according to Lien Botha part of “…a visual poem stretching across fourteen sets of photographic ternaries, alluding to our circuit on the brink of a deranged paradise. The work has a strong satirical undertone, possibly even cunning, as it is largely implied by this society”.

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Mondou Series, 2008
Archival inkjet print
50 x 53cm

From the AMENDMENT series:

Long shadow
Beginning at the End

 

Muse by day
The Case of a Crime less Classic

 

Muse by night
The Case of Justice as a Poem

LIEN BOTHA'S EXHIBITION "ANTHOLOGY" AT THE ABALONE GALLERY in HERMANUS in collaboration with the PHOTOGRAPHER'S Gallery in CAPE TOWN ( APRIL /MAY 2009 )

Anthology is a selection from four photographic portfolios produced by Lien Botha between 2003 and 2008.

It consists of Safari, Amendment, White stick for the Arctic and Moundou.

The work formed the nexus of Botha’s recent mid- career retrospective exhibition which opened at the Oliewenhuis Museum in Bloemfontein in November 2008 and moved to the Thompson Gallery in Johannesburg in March 2009and to Abalone Gallery in Hermanus in April and May. .

The Safari series of sixteen works has been widely exhibited over the past five years from venues across South Africa to Japan, France, Brussels, the USA and Mali. These archival inkjet colour photographic prints consist of line drawings super-imposed over a range of rural South African landscapes – from Swartruggens in the North-West Province to Goegap in Namakwaland. This body of work has been described as a finely woven poem with the most subtle satirical indentations: Botha’s ode to a beloved albeit beleaguered landscape.

The triptych (template style) works which constitute Amendment opened to critical acclaim at the Photographers’ gallery in 2006 and was subsequently exhibited at the Te Papa Tongarewa Museum in Auckland New Zealand as part of the Moving towards a balanced earth exhibition where work by artists such as Antonio Briceno and Bill Viola also formed part of this show.

At the end of 2007 Botha was invited to a residency in Trento Italy to produce a body of work in collaboration with Arte Boccanera in Trento and the Photographers Gallery in Cape Town. White stick for the Arctic - a portfolio in seven “chapters” (2008) was the result of this venture. This body of work has also been included in Construct - a seminal contemporary photographic group exhibition which examines the lens- based narrative beyond the constraints of the documentary photograph and which will be one of the main exhibitions at the Grahamstown Arts festival in June 2009.

In conclusion, photograhic prints from Botha’s most recent work called Moundou were included in the Hermanus itinerary of Anthology. An element which forms a cardinal thread in linking the four various bodies of work is the word/text which serves both as a clue and also as a visual element