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VANESSA BERLEIN        
1968, Mbombelo (Nelspruit), Mpumalanga, South Africa  
         

Vanessa Berlein is a South African visual artist based in Cape Town.


Represented by:

Tanya Baxter Gallery London / Hong Kong
District Gallery, Shaker heights, Ohio, USA
Graham Contemporary, Johannesburg, SA


EXHIBITIONS

2013
ABSA KKNK - Oudtshoorn - “Quintessence - 12 People I Know”. Solo
ABSA KKNK - Oudtshoorn - ‘Velvet’. Group Exhibition (curated by Christiaan Diedericks)
Rust-En-Vrede - "Chocolate box Series”. Solo
Sanlam Portrait Award - Top 40 Finalist
Investec Cape Town Art Fair - Cape Town - Represented by DF Collective

2014          
Investec Cape Town Art Fair - Represented by World Art
World Art, Cape Town - “Disengagement”. Solo
AITY, Franschhoek - “Lucent”. Exhibition with Francois Irvine
Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein. “The Industrial Karoo - Fear & Loss”. Group exhibition
Turbine Artfair, Johannesburg - DF Collective
Rust en Vrede, Durbanville - Music & Lyrics Exhibition. Group exhibition
Salon 91, Cape Town - "Golden Haze”. Group exhibition

2015         
Sanlam Portrait Award - Finalist
That Art Fair, Cape Town - DF Collective
Pretoria Art Museum - "The Industrial Karoo- Fear & Loss”. Group exhibition
Equus Gallery Cavalli Estate - "Winter is coming”. Group exhibition
D/F Collective. Johannesburg and Cape Town - "I bet you look good on the dance floor”. Solo

2016               
AITY, Franschhoek - "Abstraction: Apart & Together”. Collaborative exhibition with Frans Smit
Tanya Baxter Contemporary. Kings Road, London - "Cohesive Clash”. Group exhibition
Hong Kong Art Fair - Tanya Baxter Contemporary
Olympia Art Fair, London - Tanya Baxter Contemporary
DF Contemporary, Cape Town - “Artemisia”. Group exhibition

2017             
AITY, Franschhoek - Female Energy. Group exhibition
SPI National Portrait Award South Africa. Finalist with two works
ART Africa Fair - DF Contemporary
Hong Kong Art Fair - Tanya Baxter Contemporary
Juliette Cullinan Standard Bank Wine Festival - Holden Manz
Fynarts 2017 - Rossouw Modern
Eclectica Contemporary - The scent of Joss Sticks. Solo
Grande Provence - Celebration of Angels

2018                      
HFAS (Harlem Fine Arts Show) - New York. SAWAA (South African Women’s Art Association)
The Melrose Gallery - Materiality. Group exhibition

2019                     
Deepest Darkest - Bloodlines - Imagined Histories. Group exhibition
Platform 13 - "Precarious Winters". Group exhibition

2020                                         
Zeitz MOCAA - Home is where the art is. Group exhibition
Rust-en-Vrede - “Women who read are dangerous”. Group exhibition
ManZart - “Boys and girls in the Hood in the hood”. Solo
Haas Collective - curated and exhibited on “These walls have eyes”. Group exhibition

2021                                        
Rust-en-Vrede - National Portrait award. Finalist
AITY, Franschhoek - “Bloom”. Solo

2022                                          
District Gallery Ohio USA. Group exhibition
Breytenbach Gallery, Wellington SA - “Die Hand, Die Mond, Die Hartvlamvol”. Group exhibition
Affordable Art Fair London, Battersea Park, UK - Represented by Natasha Barnes

2023                                                           
F1 Gallery, Cape Town - What the circus left behind. Solo
Affordable Art Fair Hampstead, London, UK - Represented by Natasha Barnes
Rossouw Modern, Hermanus - ‘Ibethiwe Aphuke - Beaten, not Broken’ Group exhibition
Alliance Francais du Cap - Synergy. Group Exhibition
Graham Contemporary, JHB - ‘New Day’. Group Exhibition
Graham Contemporary, JHB - ‘Optimal Vibration’. Group exhibition
Graham Contemporary, JHB - Sunny side up
District Gallery, Shaker Heights, Ohio, USA
Tanya Baxter Contemporary - Art Miami 23

2024                    
Tanya Baxter Contemporary - London Artfair
Tanya Baxter - Art Palm Beach
Rossouw Modern, Hermanus, SA - Space Curated
Tanya Baxter Contemporary - Art Central, HK
Graham Contemporary, JHB, SA - Green Fuse


view image larger
Artist: VANESSA BERLEIN
Title: Neath the Devils Peak
Size: 125 x 125 cm
Media: Oil on gold leaf paper
ID: 29369
Price: R 80 000 Framed

 

BIOGRAPHY

Primarily a painter, she has explored and worked in several mediums throughout her 30 + year art career, including photography, print, script and sculpture. Berlein works across a broad spectrum of subjects, from portraiture to landscape, abstraction to botanical study.

Berlein has exhibited both in South Africa and abroad.
Berlein is a listed African artist with the Smithsonian Library in USA.

Berlein’s Landscape work evokes a sense of melancholy and surrealism. Drawn mostly from the memory of road trips that always led home, they are imagined and yet recognisable as somewhere most have been to. She works predominantly in oil on gold leaf on paper and linen.

In her abstract paintings, she works with a cross section of mediums, incorporating metal leafing, stitching, and industrial products, alongside traditional art materials. Her abstract paintings are greatly influenced and informed by time spent as a child exploring underground mine workings with her father, who owned a mine in the Pilgrim’s Rest area in South Africa.

Since the early 1990’s, Vanessa has often included transcripts of her short stories and poetry in her paintings. In her most recent body of work - Scribbled Stories - Berlein explores her emotional response to stories she has harboured over the years. The seemingly random marks and scribbles on the canvases suggest a purging of the words, the colours intuitively chosen: the stories in colours and the colours in stories.

Berlein's figurative and portrait work explores the eccentric and individual quirks of people, celebrating the beauty within humanity, the fragility of the human soul and their individual stories. Berlein sets out to capture the moments between pose, when people are most candid and unaware of the viewer, and so expose their most vulnerable side. She has been a finalist in the South African Portrait award five times and is well known for her portraiture.

 

     
     
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