The title for this exhibition refers to the Sterkfontein caves, the world’s richest hominid site, ‘the cradle of human kind’, which has made a large impact in examining a dialogue between the human and nature’s own imprints. There is almost an unlimited amount of information about the Magaliesberg that could be interpreted visually. Pechová has focussed  on  a few aspects, which she finds particularly interesting, and divides them loosely into four sections, collections, new arrivals, homestones and boundaries, and Tonquani gorge.

There exist different kinds of homestones and boundaries. Some boundaries are well protected, some assume only a symbolic presence, some are fluid, being constantly reclaimed and renegotiated. The questions asked here are, for example: how are the various types put in place? How are the boundaries delineated? How are they defended? How are they shaped and marked? What happens when these boundaries are breached? What happens when the home walls are broken or the ‘homestones’ desecrated? Where do the boundaries allow different people to meet and where do they clash? The well protected boundaries - the walls of houses, dry walls around villages, or military defence walls can fall and be breeched with time and with force. Some of the more fluid boundaries are less well defined and therefore can’t be invaded easily. These boundaries are often so subtle that only the members of the same tribe can recognise them. Often they are marked with etchings and pictorial messages onto stones. These, the ‘ homestones’ are placed at the ‘entrance’ to a territory belonging to a particular group of people. These ‘significant’ stones can often be only observed from a certain approach.

 

In collections, she makes references to the methodology of scientific research which starts with collecting and categorising of samples. For her investigation she has chosen collections of butterflies, flowers and beetles peculiar to this region, and items from private collections of people living in this area - items such as a rocking horse, silver spoons, pictures, or locks and keys.

The last work is a compilation of etchings inspired by the rock art and rock etchings done by the succession of indigenous people who lived in the Magaliesberg. They often considered the rock surface as a veil suspended between this world and the world of the spirits, the world that the shamans enter through animal potency. There are many examples of rock etchings depicting specifically animals which are also seen as embodiments of natural phenomena - rain or thunder, but are at the same time a statement of their creators’ beliefs, rituals and lifestyle in general.

Still lifes in black and white, which is based on the seventeenth-century Dutch still lifes, is dealing with everyday household objects and decorations, fruit and flower arrangements, objects that the European settlers would be likely to bring with them. These are contrasted, and at the same time complemented, with objects from their new African surroundings.

 

Curriculum vitae

Janina Pechová - resident in South Africa for over 20 years - spent her childhood in Prague, a charming, old-world architectural and artistic gem. This vibrant marketplace of ideas also boasts the second oldest university in Europe. Her hometown provided the earliest inspiration for her paintings and designs. After the 1968 occupation of her country by the communist USSR, her family emigrated to Sweden. She studied at universities in Sweden, Vienna and Great Britain, majoring in art, modern languages, linguistics, sciences and teaching methodologies, completing a BA degree at Uppsala university before moving to Cape Town. Here she graduated with a BSc in biological sciences from UCT. She also attended art courses at the Ruth Prouse Art Centre and Michaelis School of fine art under Hardy Botha. In the 1980s she studied exclusively etching at the Johannesburg Art Foundation and at Rourker’s Drift under Rosana Mahony. Last year she completed a BA degree in visual arts at UNISA.

For many years Pechová was the art director and designer of prestigious magazines such as Femme, Habitat, Marie Claire, Aero-Africa, Frontlines and Sidelines, amongst others. She also worked as a freelance designer and illustrator for many publishing houses and advertising agencies. Intermittently she taught graphic design in various tertiary institutions in Johannesburg and overseas.

Pechová’s paintings and etchings contain a synthesis of colours, iconography, styles and subject matters that could be attributed both to European and African origins. The themes of her works are often fantasies, myths or are based in mythologies.

Selected exhibitions:                                                                                                                             

1998                       Group exhibition at Wedgwood Gallery, Parkhurst.

1999                      Two group exhibitions at the Everard Read Gallery in Cape Town.

2001                       Solo exhibition at Al Attar Towers in Dubai - UAE, based on her stay in the Middle East, comprising mainly landscapes.

2002                       Solo exhibition “Twelve and one full moons”  inspired by her stay in the Arab world at the  Gail Machanik Studio in Johannesburg.

2003                       Group exhibition at the Thomson gallery “On the record - off the record.”

2004                        Solo exhibition “Wonderings” at the Art Place, Johannesburg

2006                       Solo exhibition “legends” at Gordart gallery Johannesburg

2007                       Group exhibition at Association of Art in Pretoria, South Africa