FORMS Gallery is a dynamic structure for working with artists. It was founded by Anthea Buys in 2021 and works closely with ten artists, most of whom are in the early stages of their careers.
FORMS draws on gallery, institutional and independent curatorial models, presenting a programme that takes shape through a combination of online and in-real-life manifestations. At the heart of this programme are ongoing collaborations with artists who make work that is critically, aesthetically and politically important. Also central to the FORMS ecosystem are connections with like-minded spaces, people and organisations.
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FORMS Gallery is a dynamic structure for working with artists. It was founded by Anthea Buys in 2021 and works closely with ten artists, most of whom are in the early stages of their careers.
FORMS draws on gallery, institutional and independent curatorial models, presenting a programme that takes shape through a combination of online and in-real-life manifestations. At the heart of this programme are ongoing collaborations with artists who make work that is critically, aesthetically and politically important. Also central to the FORMS ecosystem are connections with like-minded spaces, people and organisations.
Robyn Penn
b. 1973, Johannesburg
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Recent/Upcoming Exhibitions:
God’s Away on Business
Nel on Long, Cape Town, 04/08/2022–26/08/2022
Time Is A Broken Umbrella
AVA Gallery, Cape Town, 10/03/2022–21/04/2022
KZNSA Gallery Durban, 13/05/2022–26/06/2022
b. 1973, Johannesburg
On Artsy
Personal Website
Recent/Upcoming Exhibitions:
God’s Away on Business
Nel on Long, Cape Town, 04/08/2022–26/08/2022
Time Is A Broken Umbrella
AVA Gallery, Cape Town, 10/03/2022–21/04/2022
KZNSA Gallery Durban, 13/05/2022–26/06/2022
Robyn Penn is a South African-born artist based in Auckland, Aoteoroa, New Zealand. Through a practice that straddles painting, printmaking and drawing, she explores the relationship between nature and humankind, and experience and knowledge. In recent works, Penn considers the irreversible impact of humans on the planet and contrasts this with our awe when faced with the natural sublime. Her work speaks to the history of painting in the West, and reflects on how the aesthetic conventions of Romanticism and Modernism translate in postcolonial contexts. In the words of South African critic Ashraf Jamal, "Penn's work invites an audience to inhabit a world, which, in truth, is fast becoming uninhabitable. Preoccupied with the crisis of climate change, her works aren’t designed to assuage our fears, but in their muted, quiet, yet unerringly uncertain manner, ask us to embrace unsettlement, to take that unsettlement to heart."
Penn's work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions in South Africa and abroad, and is represented in several private and institutional collections around the world, including those of the Ampersand Foundation and the Smithsonian Museum, Washington D.C. She has been a recipient of the Ampersand Fellowship, (New York, 2014) and the Bickerton – Widdowson Trust Memorial Scholarship (New Zealand, 1998), and was a finalist in the Waikato Museum National Contemporary Art Award (New Zealand) in 2019.
Penn's work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions in South Africa and abroad, and is represented in several private and institutional collections around the world, including those of the Ampersand Foundation and the Smithsonian Museum, Washington D.C. She has been a recipient of the Ampersand Fellowship, (New York, 2014) and the Bickerton – Widdowson Trust Memorial Scholarship (New Zealand, 1998), and was a finalist in the Waikato Museum National Contemporary Art Award (New Zealand) in 2019.
Selected works
