Merit Q&A - Michaele Deeks

Congratulations on being announced as one of the 7 winners in the Sasol New Signatures Competition 2021.

Congratulations on being announced as one of the 7 winners in the Sasol New Signatures Competition 2021. Tell us what your reaction was when you received the news.

I was busy driving and had to try and keep focussed on the road! I had a sense of unreality and disbelief together with of feeling that I don’t really know how to handle the news – I’m not really a ‘winner’ type of person. I suppose I never really feel worthy enough. There is so much talent out there.

Is this the first time you have entered the competition?

No, I did enter in 2019.

Tell us a little about your artistic journey up until the point of entering Sasol New Signatures 2021?  

I always liked drawing as a child, but we never did anything of that sort beyond Std 6 and that was very irregularly as the teachers wanted us to focus on academics. I started clay sculpting about 15 years ago with Amalie von Maltitz and just loved it. When I retired from the corporate world, I felt I wanted to learn to draw and paint and for some reason decided to enrol for a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Unisa, which I completed last year. It was a great journey and stretched and expanded my experience of what I perceived of as art and my very limited knowledge of it.

Who has had the biggest influence on your career as an artist to date? 

Artists in general, it is always so inspiring to see what they do. My husband Mike is quietly supportive of my endeavours, my son Christopher is always willing to engage and seemed to ‘get it’ and the lecturers from Unisa were always so encouraging and insightful.

Tell us a little about why you created the piece you submitted? 

Covid really influenced me, and the world. From watching the surreal horror pictures and statistics as they came from the East and then Europe and onto the US coming closer and closer. We started losing people we knew to the virus. We had to live restricted lives, limited by law and fear in what we could do and who we could see. We seemed to be holding our breath for it to be all over and return to normal life, even as we thought that it might never be quite the same again. Everything became smaller and more restricted, we were cut off and heard of others even more so, not able to do what was culturally and traditionally acceptable - sharing meals with family or friends, hugging people, even visiting the sick and dying.  My perception of people seemed to become distanced and with that distorted, becoming just a number, a statistic or a story. I felt I needed to deal with the many thoughts and impressions I was having, recording in stitch the sense of being cut off, removed, the unreality in a world dominated by this invisible invader that made us feel vulnerable and unable to fight back.

How have you navigated the past 18 months of this pandemic?  Has it affected the way you work or the messaging in your work?

Firstly, I felt I needed to justify my life and existence in the face of so much death and disease and set about doing a lot of sewing – practical dress sewing for family and the poor. I then felt I needed to reflect and deal with unresolved thoughts and issues as I did not know if and when I would get ill, and if I did, if I was ready to die.

Tell us about your preferred medium/s ...and why? 

Apart from my clay sculpture I like to draw and have gravitated to ‘drawing’ in stitch. I suppose from my years of sewing as a mother and homemaker. My mother was a very good sewer and it was part of my life.

When people view your work – what reaction/response  are you hoping to create?

I hope that they can understand what am saying and that it can touch that part of them that feels for our fellow man and acknowledges that the stress and trauma that we have lived through with this pandemic. I know we all want to get back to where we were: laughing, drinking, working, dancing and deny the power and effect that the pandemic.

Why do you think your work was chosen as a top 7?

That I cannot answer.

And if you are chosen as the overall winner?  How would you feel? Have you already got an idea or vison for your solo exhibition?

Oh, my goodness. I would be completely overwhelmed. I know where I want to go with some work that I have started over this period, but I am not sure if it would be what I would do for a solo exhibition.

What are you currently working on? What is next for you as an artist?                            

I am currently working on some clay sculptures of seed pods for a proposed Artwalk.

Which South African artists do you admire and why?  

Difficult to choose, we have so much talent in the country. William Kentridge – he is so accomplished in so many media, is innovative and challenging without beating you over the head with an idea. Nicholas Hlobo’s work is exquisite, so clever and thought provoking. Zanele Muholi and Nandipha Mntambo are also very exciting.

Is there anything else you want to add?

I would just like to thank Sasol for the enormous contribution they make to the arts and lift that being able to enter a competition like this gives us artists.