Recite, the title of Kitty Dörje’s solo exhibition at The Cape Gallery, encompasses three areas of exploration, namely memory, location and point of view. Recite features a body of recent paintings concerning the subject of retaining individual identity within hierarchies and functioning systems that exist in society. The exhibition will be introduced by Andrew Lamprecht and will form part of First Thursdays in April 2014.
While preparing for the exhibition, Kitty regularly visited the Sea Point Promenade, St. George’s Cathedral and the Castle, significant sights around the city that form part of our collective cultural context. Drawing inspiration from the work of one of her key influences, performance artist Marina Abramović, Kitty manifests her outward expression by physically walking, running and swimming through these locations in quiet meditation, acts of creative and personal freedom, and so she examines the challenge of shaping individual identity while maintaining collective systems.
In one of her essays, Kitty looks at the history of the Knight’s Templar and the concept of Ubuntu. She explores the constant struggle of working towards an idea of the greater good within a group dynamic when perceptions of the greater good are subjective and often offers two different sides of the same coin. The imposition of individual meanings onto objects and spaces based on personal experience has ignited her fascination with semantics and the definition of words.
Kitty has a B.A. (Fine Art) from Michalelis School of Fine Art, UCT. Her creative output is mainly in the fields of drawing, painting, printmaking and video. She held a solo exhibition called Remerge at the AVA in 2012 and has been part of numerous group shows, including This must be the place at iArt (2011), Continuum at the Cape Gallery (2011), Greatmore Trust group show at Irma Stern (2009), Proof of life at VANSA (2009) as well as the Sticks and Stones exhibition at 38 Special Gallery (2009). Her video work has been included in the Mixed Tape Mobile Cinema in Grahamstown (2009) and been part of the final selection at the One Minute awards.
