Lizamore & Associates is hosting a solo exhibition by Karin Preller in September. Titled Stilled Lives, this exhibition continues the artist’s exploration of the interaction between painting and photography.

Known mainly for her photo-based paintings referencing pictorial archives such as family albums, home movies and photo magazines, still life has remained an ongoing interest for Preller.

Stilled Lives is an exhibition of paintings and drawings. As in previous exhibitions, the interaction between painting and photography remains pivotal to Preller’s work.

Her paintings reference photographically frozen moments, which, by the obvious time expended on their laboured surfaces, uncover layers of nostalgia, amnesia, trauma and loss. The painted surface itself, ambiguously ‘caught between’ painted and photographic layers, is as much the subject matter of Preller’s work as the chosen iconography.

In Stilled Lives the photographed object and the photograph as object interact with each other, emphasising both the nature of still life (as memento mori – reminders of the fragility and transience of existence) and of the photograph as already an object; as already a still life.

Her focus on dolls becomes metaphoric of human relationships; of lives interrupted. Preller’s main interest is on registering the dislocation and fragmentation of objects and snapshots from their past histories – of moments stilled in time.

The interaction between the lifelessness of the dolls and images of childhood become a way of exploring the fragility of lives captured and lost – not only in the snapshot but also in the objects that we hoard, cherish and discard.

Karin Preller lives and works in Johannesburg. After a relatively brief career in law, she completed a BA(FA) at Unisa and an MA(FA) at the University of the Witwatersrand, lecturing in Art History at UNISA and other tertiary institutions. At present she is a full time artist.

Preller has participated in numerous group shows and has had a number of solo exhibitions: Snapshots at Gordart Gallery in 2007, Aperture at Fried Contemporary in 2008, Stills at Lizamore & Associates in 2009, City and Suburban at the Standard Bank Gallery in 2010 and Just above the mantelpiece at Lizamore & Associates in 2013, amongst others.

Preller’s work is included in a number of corporate collections. These include The Johannesburg Art Gallery, Sasol, ABSA, Unisa, OliewenhuIs Art Museum, The Public Protector, ATKV and the Standard Bank.

This exhibition closes on September 26. Lizamore & Associates, 155 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood is open from 10 am to 5 pm Tuesday to Friday and from 10 am to 3 pmon Saturdays.