About
Bonita Alice is a Cape Town based visual artist.
She was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.
She studied at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Cape Town and lectured in several Fine Art Departments until 2003. She relocated to London in 2007, returning to South Africa in 2020.
Bonita Alice's studio practice reflects her interest in Animal studies, a growing, global, cross-disciplinary field in which attempts are made to better understand human-non-human animal relationships. Alice is particularly interested in aspects within psychology and psychoanalysis which she believes are useful in understanding the abuse of animals and the environment.
"My practice reflects my preoccupation with the crisis of our age … environmental degradation and our apparent inability, as a species, to properly register our role in it; to act to rescue the situation and ultimately, ourselves.
My focus has long been with psychological matters and our relationship with other animals. In our resistance to the idea of the suffering and annihilation of other species, despite the intense emotional closeness we share with some of them, I suspect a kind of madness.
Psychology is concerned with the denial or disavowal of internal (or emotional) crises, which, unaddressed, may have external consequences whose effects impact not just ourselves. Many of my works suggest a metaphorical (and, in some cases, a more direct) connection between collective human dysfunction and environmental catastrophe." BA 2017
Solo exhibitions :
2015 - Strangers of Commanding Aspect - Gallery AOP, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 - Beast In A Dangerous Landscape - Gallery AOP, Johannesburg, South Africa
2010 - Beast At Home - Gallery AOP, Johannesburg, South Africa
2007 - Anticipated Memory - Gallery AOP, Johannesburg, South Africa
2005 - Promised Land - The Premises Gallery, Civic Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa
- Promised Land - (Invitation Exhibition) US Museum and Art Gallery, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
- Promised Land - KZNSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa
2001/2 - Giving And Not Giving - Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
- Giving And Not Giving - Millennium Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
1994 - Exhibition of new Sculptural Works - Everard Read Contemporary Gallery, Johannesburg
1990 - Exhibition of sculpture - Goodman Galleries, Johannesburg, South Africa
Group exhibitions include
2022 - Jan-Ken Paa/Paper – Studio/Gallery no.3 SPG, Muizenberg, Cape Town 2021 - Cubicles Series – Eremocene – Everard Read Cape Town
2020 - Against Interpretation? – Exhibition of Work By South African Artists, Everard Read London
2017 - Exhibition of new works with Beverley Paton, Creek Creative, Faversham, UK
2017 – Summer Salon - Lubomirov Angus-Hughes, London, UK
2017 – Antennae – Lubomirov Angus-Hughes, London and Platforms Project, Athens
2016 – Dr Dolittle’s Daughters – Exhibition with artist, Fiona McDonald (of Feral Practice), and discussion with Art
Historian, Yvette Gresle, at V22, Louise House, Forest Hill, London
2015 – Anonymous Drawings, Galerie Nord | Kunstverein Tiergardten, Berlin, Germany
2015 – A5, Art Athina, Athens, Greece…. Project by Lubomirov- Easton, London
2014 – Jerwood Drawing Prize, UK, traveling exhibition
2014 – A5, Art Athina, Athens, Greece…. Project by Lubomirov- Easton, London
2010 - Halakasha – (Exhibition of Artworks and objects relating to African football) - WAM, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
2008 - Exhibition of contemporary South African Art - Myerson Fine Art, London, UK
2006 - Launch of Johannesburg Art Bank, Johannesburg Art Gallery
2006 - Exhibition of 3 artists' work about Johannesburg, Johannesburg Art Gallery
2002 - Sao Paulo Bienal Commission of two-part site-specific work entitled Spirit I and Spirit II
2000 - A.R.E.A. ... Exhibition of Contemporary South African Art, National Gallery of Iceland
1999 - The Paper Show ... Goodman Galleries, Johannesburg, South Africa
1999 - Emergence ... 25 Years of South African Art, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown
1999 - Urban Futures ... Museum Africa, Johannesburg
1998 - !Xoe Site-Specific ... Exhibition of site-specific works, Nieu- Bethesda, South Africa
Bonita Alice's work is held by the Everard Read London gallery and can be viewed on request.
https://www.everardlondon.com/
See also the artist's blog at www.bonitaalice.blogspot.com for images, and writing by the artist and others.