The Mountain Without a Shadow

THE MOUNTAIN WITHOUT A SHADOW
by anja marais

THE MOUNTAIN
WITHOUT A SHADOW
by anja marais
bridge red studios / project space
12425 ne 13th ave, north miami, fl, 33161
reception: sunday, april 8, 2018 | 4 pm – 7 pm
closing on may 27th, 2018
by appointment - call 305 393 9853

In “The Mountain Without a Shadow” themes of displacement and cultural heritage permeate
Anja Marais’ work. Often using photography combined with found objects, her work is imbued
with a ritualistic quality. Central to Marais’ work is the disintegration of material, creating metaphors
for the human condition, geography, and memory.
Born in South Africa and now living in Miami, Marais’ work challenges the viewer to rethink
the meaning of systematic conditioning. Photography forms the basis of much of her mixed media
work, but she also employs more archaic materials like maize, soil, rust, etc to realize her works.
Whilst Marais’ work subtly alludes to the impact of racism in South Africa – a country immersed
in political and social turmoil during her upbringing – her themes have a universal appeal. Marais
reinforces this:
‘…. I am interested in interpreting direct experiences that contradict our conditioning.
With first-hand experience we don’t see things as they are, but how we see them
as we are. An opportunity to discover dissonance between what we know and what we
are born with ‘

The exhibition comprises ten of Marais’ most telling works from multiple projects around ‘the sins
of the fathers’. In ‘The Transparency of Rocks‘, one of the larger pieces in the exhibition, Marais
combines images of a child merging with rocks, a reflection on carrying the transgressions of our
forefathers.
In ‘A Poem for the Sharpevilles‘, she uses press images from traumatic events in history and washes
them away to recede and merge into the landscape, an attempt to memorialize landscape as a mute
witness to the actions of man.
Also featured are recent sculpture works. These include found objects enmeshed with Maize. Corn
is a staple food in Africa as in many other countries and is used in rituals of the ancestors.
“Libation for the Lineage of the Unlived.” is a video work that combines ritual and ethnopoetics
bringing the outside and ‘other’ world into the space of the gallery.

Most of All, it Sang about its Persistent Thirst
2018
26 in X 22 in
Photo-transfer, Maize, and Found Object.

Lightness of Being
2014
76 in x 79 in
Photomontage transfer, tar on Found bedspread

Biography
Multi-disciplinary artist Anja Marais was born and raised in the countryside of South Africa. As
a young adult, she apprenticed with a landscape painter for many years. She graduated from the
University of South Africa with a BFA (honours) in 1998. She has been selected and participated in
various programs such as the Enrique Martinez Celaya Summer Workshop (in affiliation with the
Anderson Ranch Art Center).
She recently exhibited at The International Museum of Art and Science, Texas, The University of
the Arts Gallery, Philadelphia; Ground Moscow Gallery, St Petersburg, Russia; MDC Museum of
Art + Design, Miami; Baker Museum of Naples, Florida; and the Museum of History of St Petersburg,
Poterna Hall, Russia.
Her work is in private and museum collections at the Akari Museum Japan, Kronstadt History
Museum Russia, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Miami. She was awarded the South Florida
Cultural Consortium Fellowship 2014, Florida Division of Cultural Affairs Individual Artist
Fellowship 2010.
She attended art residencies in Europe, Asia, and the USA, which includes the Ucross Art Residency
in Wyoming, The Millay Art Colony in New York, etc. Marais has also given Art lectures and talks
at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, The Northern Colorado University, Greeley, the Museum
of Contemporary Art Miami and other non-profit organizations.

Transparency of Rocks
2014
87 in X 72 in
Photomontage, wax, and oil, on recycled tablecloth.

Migration Pattern of the Shadowless Mountains.
2018
Triptych: 26 in x 22 in; 22 in x 18 in; 24 in x 19 in.
Photo-transfer, Wine, Maize on Found Fabrics.

Poem for the Sharpevilles, One.
2017
67 in x 84 in
Decollage paper on found bedspread from South Africa.

The Storm
2014
87 in x 89 in
Photomontage transfer, oil paint, ink found objects.

Where We Lay Our Heads.
2016
52.2 in x 110 in x 13 in
Photomontage Transfer on Found Baby Mattresses

Most of All, it Sang about its Persistent Thirst
2018
26 in X 22 in
Photo-transfer, Maize, and Found Object.

This Song of Yearning Urged Us to Get Up
and Emptied our Mason Jars
2018
65 in x 16 in x 12 in
Found objects, Maize, Sisal and Venetian Plaster.

The Mountain Without a Shadow, or,
Unfinished Business
I once walked past your front yard.
You waved me in.
Something appeared on the horizon when you looked out your living room window that day.
You had to show me.
A mountain, overnight, bricked itself in the firmament, cemented tight by cloud.
“Look!” you say.
“I did not see that yesterday, but when I woke up today, there it was!”
I felt the boulder stack more than I could see it, but yes,
it was there.
The way you can see a brain tumor in faltered speech.
You poured us each clear spirits in Mason jars and invited me to sit
outside on lawn chairs.
Together we watched the sun compete with stone.
The sun did not appreciate this new roadblock, it lamented.
“What do you think you are doing here? Can’t you see, I have
somewhere to be?”
The mountain sat mute.
The sun tried its work, this way and that, up, down, but was in a cul-de-sac.

It was then that we realized that the mountain did not cast a shadow.
Its weight, without shade. Its demeanor, soundless.
But deep inside a fissure in its craggy side, we heard an old voice sing.
It was so familiar, I could smell my Mother,
It was so innate to my bones, I could feel my Grandfather move under the ground.
A song of displacement.
Of fallen soldiers,
grieving children,
wounded women,
caged animals,
and decapitated forests.
Most of all, it sang about its persistent thirst.
Parched and filled with yester-dust.
A silo throat devoid of unharvested maize.
This song of yearning urged us to get up and emptied our Mason jars.
Pouring the clear spirits onto the soil, seeping away.
As the mountain drank from our jars and right before it faded,
we stood for a tick in its newborn shadow.
All that remained was the backside of the sun on its way.
~ by Anja Marais © 2018

Libation for the Lineage of the Unlived
2018
16:9, Video Ltd Ed of 25
Video installation with found objects, xerox, and maize

“In ‘The Mountain Without a Shadow’ I use mixed media collage, sculpture, and video, to disarticulate
long-held collective memories in an effort to reveal a better understanding of cultural heritage and systematic
conditioning, especially those systems causing group punishment and cultural displacement. In
my two and three-dimensional works, I use maize, wine, and milk as an act of oblation and libation, a
ritual in breaking cycles of transgenerational transgression. Central to my work is the disintegration of
material, creating metaphors for the human condition, geography, and memory.

idge red studios / project space
12425 ne 13th ave, north miami, fl, 33161
reception: sunday, april 8, 2018 | 4 pm – 7 pm
closing on may 27th, 2018
by appointment - call 305 393 9853