Art of Surfing - Surf as Art

Surf and art, or surf as art? Any way you put it, we surfers have always been connected to the world of art. I guess it comes from our connection to such a powerful and beautiful piece of nature - the ocean is one serious piece of art!

As part of their Surf Film Festival, Wavescape have encluded an art exhibition, utilsing surfboards. What a great idea!

Wavescape's official Run Down:

From this heady mix flows the juice that concocts the creative result of the Wavescape Surfboard Art Exhibition that runs 1-7 December at the Depasco Café on Kloof Street, and culminates in the Wavescape Art Auction on Wednesday 8 December.
Proceeds of the auction, in which 12 decorated  retro 80s ‘Pottz Twin Fin’ surfboards will be sold by funny man Mark Sampson, goes to ocean charities such as the NSRI, Shark Spotters and Ticket To Ride Foundation.

Look out for the asymmetrical, manga-on-acid-like-characters of Black Koki and 35ten73, from the Love and Hate crew. Enjoy and decipher the out-there tapestry of underground grafster Ice7. Ewok, renowned beat poet and graffiti legend works with underground talent Bones on their board. Cape Argus cartoonist and Kommetjie charger Chip Snaddon brings extra surfing cred to the party. Conrad Botes aka “Konradski” from Bitterkomix is back with another tightly encrypted study of South African weirdness. Stalwart ND Mazin, the author of What's so Funny?, a cartoon history of South Africa, and You Must Be Joking - The Year in Cartoons, works on a celestially-charged commentary on the darker side of humanity in the Mystic Duiker. Also with the old guard, come the Durban-based design duo of Scott Robertson and Kim Longhurst who share a board for a two-sided view of their cryptic wit.
Other newcomers Osnat de Villiers and Matthew Pinker bring more than a background steeped in the ethos of surfing and its subculture. De Villiers is a renowned Scarborough-based painter who works with her partner Pierre de Villiers to add custom aesthetics to his Dream surfboard shapes. Pinker, a talented painter, moves beyond the legacy left by his father Stanley Pinker, whose work Wheel of Life (1974) recently fetched R2.5 million as part of a new record set in South African art sales in October (a work by Irma Stern fetched R13.4 million).

This year’s shape – the Pottz Twin Fin – was famous in the early 1980s just before the advent of the Thruster: surfboards with three fins. The board comes with klinkers (wings) and laminated wooden fins. Speaking of wood, Wavescape welcomes the talent of artisan Patrick Burnett as he creates a hand-crafted wooden version of the board, and fine artist Kelly John Gough, who will decorate the piece with one of his trademark nudes.

Wavescape teams up with Tim Cornibear of the Ticket to Ride foundation and Muizenberg artist Claire Homewood to decorate one of the 12 surfboards with development surfer kids from Masiphumelele township. Proceeds of this board go to the foundation for its projects with disadvantaged children.
Also on show, and to be auctioned will be a mini-surfboard reshaped from a broken board, part of the My First Surfboard Project penned by South African surfing’s agent provocateur Conn Bertish.
“Every year, thousands of broken surfboards end up in dumps and landfills, and are environmentally toxic. The project turns broken boards into new boards for beginner surfers who can’t afford them, transforming junk into transforming a kid’s life.”
The money raised from the auction will go to ocean charities including NSRI, Shark Spotters, SOSF and Ticket to Ride, so pull in, enjoy the free beer and bid for a surfboard for a good cause.

For more info go to www.wavescape.co.za or call 079 0260 669