The Kyle Kauffman Gallery is pleased to present Generative Markings: Planet Paul in Apogee, South African artist Paul du Toit’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, running from October 16 – November 29, 2008.

Although best known for his brightly colored, bold and expressive paintings and sculptures, Paul du Toit recently made headlines for creating a realistic sculpture based on the hand of former South African president and universally revered icon, Nelson Mandela. The piece was sold recently at auciton in London for $3.5 million, and propelled du Toit into a rarefied group of artists from Africa whose works have sold for over a million dollars. While the works on this show will be substantially lower in price, they will exhibit the same emotive and expressive qualities that the recent record-breaking piece possessed.

Paul du Toit’s work is a fusion of disparate influences: a modernist aesthetic evocative of Picasso and Miro, a methodology that incorporates the skills of Chinese calligraphy, and the whimsy of the Pop movement. Over time, du Toit has developed what he has deemed a ‘forest of symbols’, his own formal lexicon of slashes, squiggles and scrawls that he maps onto the canvas. Deeply concerned with the evolution of his mark-making, he obsessively works and reworks these signs and lines throughout his oeuvre. As a result of this ingrained repetition, his process has become one of almost unconscious thought, his art the manifestation of automatic and spontaneous expression. Working horizontally or on the ground, a la Pollock, he beings by scarring wet paint thickly layered on the cavnas with various self-designed tools. With an impeccable eye, he fill the skeleton with bright pools of primary color, and ends by outlining the forms with abstracted figures – from a world he refers to as PlanetPaul – beings bearing du Toit’s signature glyphs that signify heads, eyes and mouths. These forms are indices of the inner psyche of the artist – a dichotomy of his innate happiness, affability and joy, and also the lingering pain of a childhood cripppled by rheumatoid arthritis. The resulting body of work, with is deep personal emotion, its Pop appeal, its dissolution of high/low culture barriers, and always aesthetically pleasing composition, immediately pulls the specatator in with its raw and primal accessibility.

On view are paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, which make evident the way all his work in various media flow into and influence one another. This latest series is indebted to a recent trip to Beijing, in which he was inspired by calligraphers working with wet sponges attached to long sticks to write their pictograms in water on large flat stones. This experience has recently influenced his processes, as well as the signification and form of his markings. These latest works are more heavily reliant on ancient writing systems and prehistoric South African cave drawings.

Besides the London sale of the sculpture, du Toit’s work has become increasingly sought after by international collectors and exhibited in galleries and museums outside of South Africa. In the past year, he has had solo exhibitions in Europe, Asia, and Australia. Back in his native South Africa, he recently has had a number of highly successful commercial shows in both Cape Town and Johannesburg. He is also accomplished for having been the first South African invited to participate in the Florence Biennale in 2001 and to have been nominated for the prestigious DaimlerChrysler Sculpture award in 2002.

On Thursday, October 16, from 6-8 pm, please join us for an opening reception and book launch to welcome the artist Paul du Toit, and to mark the opening of the 2008 Fashion District Festival, http://www.fashioncenter.com/arts/index.html. To commemorate the exhibition, the Kyle Kauffman Gallery has published a full-color exhibition catalog available through the gallery.