"On canvas, the work is made through a measured experimentation; heavy-handed moments of addition and subtraction. Openings in the paintings appear, which give me direction. I get close to the painting. I want to be in the painting."
John-Michael Metelerkamp is considered an outsider artist. Self-taught, he started his practice long after completing school in Knysna, from where he only recently moved to Cape Town. Metelerkamp paints in several styles, repeatedly challenging his audiences, as they reconcile his current work with pieces from other phases in his oeuvre.
A defining element in John-Michael Metelerkamp’s practice is his lack of complacency. His is a practice that is always curious, and often we find a subjective exploration of the world around him, the context that he finds himself embedded in and the people he encounters, or the ones he thinks of. It is at times observational, and at other times simply imagined constructions.
"I believe that my job as an artist is to simplify the complexities of my life. Or at least my experience of life. The sense of overstimulation I feel, and a propensity for chaos, lingers around every corner of my psyche. The tension between chaos and order is a vehicle or opening whereby I can make the work I wish to. To make what I feel and see into a visual language is about focusing on something that I find interesting. And I may not be able to pin down the exactness of my curiosity, but I feel the need to challenge these thoughts and feelings, and show myself what it looks like in a visual sense – with paint."
