The Spier Arts Trust works to uplift the contribution of fine art to South Africa’s undernourished creative economy. The Trust focuses on enabling and facilitating artists’ professional careers through mentorship, advice, access to materials and markets, and developing an appreciative commercial audience.
The Saxon is well–known in Johannesburg as one of the most luxurious and well–appointed five–star hotels in the country. Its business ethos echoes that of the Spier Arts Trust in many ways, particularly around sustainability and growing local businesses. With many guests from elsewhere in the world, unfamiliar with local artistic talent, the newly refurbished hotel therefore forms a great commercial showcase for ambitious artists seeking an audience.
One of the chief pillar projects of the Trust is the Creative Block initiative, which Spier Arts Trust not only conceptualises and administers, but also works with like–minded organisations to bring the project to artistic and commercial fruition. This is how the relationship between the Trust and the Saxon Group came about. The Creative Block has partnered with the Saxon, offering the hotel the opportunity to innovatively decorate its new reception and bar areas and show guests some insight into local talent and the South African creative economy.
The Creative Block project represents more than 350 professional artists from across South Africa, and provides a fun platform for experimentation, with many emerging and established artists continuing to participate. It has become a fixture at many venues and art fairs around the country. Regular hand–in days take place around the country, at which time participating artists receive blank blocks to transform in the media of their choice for presentation and critique. Artists are encouraged to attend the hand–in day in person. This is because many are self–taught and it is through the curator’s individual critique – similar to master class feedback – that artists develop further, particularly where they may not have access to formal training or professional art networks.
When artwork is accepted by the curator, artists are paid immediately according to the number and size of blocks. The size and associated price of Creative Block artworks are set, regardless of the artist’s reputation or the medium they choose to work in. Each Creative Block carries a short artist biography on the back and allows the artists to enjoy significant exposure as their artworks are displayed around the globe, travel to art fairs and are in the collections of private owners, patrons and corporate offices.
Participating artists
One of the standout features of the Creative Block as a commercial artistic undertaking is how it gives a broad range of artists from various backgrounds and walks of life, equal access to the format of a simple framed 18cm by 18cm block of canvas on which to create, as well as equal access to markets and selling opportunity, through the curatorial and sales process each goes through.
One of the standout features of the Creative Block as a commercial artistic undertaking is how it gives a broad range of artists from various backgrounds and walks of life, equal access to the format of a simple framed 18cm by 18cm block of canvas on which to create, as well as equal access to markets and selling opportunity, through the curatorial and sales process each goes through.
A brief look at some of the very varied artists participating in the project reveals the sweep of Creative Block across the whole art ecosystem. James Delaney is a well–known painter, printmaker, and sculptor, best known for his laser– cut metal sculptures. Born in Cape Town, he currently works from a studio in Victoria Yards in downtown Johannesburg.
He studied at the University of Cape Town. In 2019, he won a BASA (Business Arts South Africa) Award for his sculptures installed in The Wilds – a previously neglected Joburg park which he is rehabilitating and rejuvenating. He has participated in multiple solo and group exhibitions in South Africa and abroad.
Khotso Motsoeneng works predominantly in painting and printmaking but was trained in photography at TUT. His painting seeks out an abstract formal language which brings together his observation of nature and intuitive perspectives on the relationship between different colours and emotions. Born in the Free State, he is currently a resident artist at August House (End Street Studios) in Johannesburg. He has taken part in several group exhibitions with the latest being Emergence at Forms Gallery, The Problem with Contemporary Art Is… at August House, both in 2021, and Life is a Broken Umbrella at the AVA Gallery, Cape Town (2022).
Ludumo ‘Toto’ Maqabuka is a painter who specialises in portraits, painting figures where the personal and the political in South African life intersect. Born in Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, he currently lives and works in Johannesburg.
Of Maqabuka’s several group exhibitions, the most recent include Rituals, as one of the Nando’s Creative Exchange artists, at AVA Gallery, Cape Town (2018) and Captive Audience at Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg (2020).
Mbali Tshabalala is making a name for herself as a multidisciplinary artist and curator. She works with various printmaking techniques in creating works that reflect her reality as it is affected by gender, race, religion and philosophy. She is currently based in Johannesburg, having received a degree in fine art from TUT in 2019, and then worked at Artist Proof Studios.
She was featured at the FNB Art Joburg Fair (2022) and again at the Latitudes Art Fair (2023) with David Krut Projects. Her works are held in several local collections like the JPMorgan Chase Art Collection.
The Saxon Exhibition
The Creative Block initiative is designed to accessibly open up the idea of collecting art for new collectors while providing a means for artists to earn a living and promote their work. The work is displayed at The Saxon in a large grid of the smaller individual works, so that displayed together they become a newly created, single ‘work’ that honestly depicts many aspects of contemporary South African society.
In a heartwarming success story, a hotel guest recently bought the entire Creative Block grid on display at the Saxon – an instant collection of over 30 works, as well as some more the hotel was keeping in storage! They have been shipped overseas as a key memento of the guest’s South African experience through art and have been replaced at the hotel with another grid of Creative Block works on display.
