These images coalesce under a working title, ‘Conversations’. Made in reference to each other, with each other. A grasp, a great sigh, an exhalation of a moment of possibility. An ongoing conversation with gesture, material and place. ‘The edge of the sky held a question – and a promise’ (From The Fountainhead (Ann Rand,1943), which I was gifted by Emily and read during my first time at the workshop). – Olivia Pinter
Late summer 2026 welcomed Olivia Pinter back into the David Krut Print Workshop. Printing with collaborator Roxy Kaczmarek, Olivia’s focus was on a series of oil-based monotypes developed in pairs.
I think about a postcard. A world encapsulated into one small rectangular image held in paper and ink. A love letter- for place and another. Ready for flight; holding the possibility, the promise, of that which is not yet. The weight of air (and how I cannot really feel it on my skin but I know it is there). – Google AI says “air has a standard pressure of 14.7 pounds per square inch (PSI) at sea level. – Which is equivalent to approximately 1.225 kg/m³. This means a column of air from the ground to space weighs 14.7 pounds per square inch, with the entire atmosphere weighing roughly 5.5 quadrillion tons.” Love is, so, back.
The gestures spoken and not, swirl and travel like song. A ripple through space. Settling into mark. A coordinate is carved between now and then; here and not here; its self and its other. In two and into. Between me and between you. And it is everything that I could have to share, made airborne and passed from hand to material. As is the inhalation, the clearing of the throat, the croak before the initial uttering. And in conversation, its clear, that love is back. – Olivia Pinter
The oil-based monotype medium demands a nuanced sensitivity to movement, gesture, and detail. Olivia’s manipulation of the tacky ink, shifting, removing, and adding, subtly pushes and pulls the perspective of the colour scapes, crafting a dynamic visual tension. Working on a smaller scale, and in pairs, her mark-making draws us in, inviting our eyes to drift over dancing lines and billowing lights that seem to hover and shimmer. When the scale requires it, she seamlessly shifts to a larger brush, remaining steadfastly to detail, no matter how minute.
Olivia, a Johannesburg-based painter, has created a body of work that explores the theme of air, a departure from her previous series grounded in the cityscape. She describes the series as a three-part journey: the first part carries sediment, condensing into dense images; the second involves reflection and interpretation of those images; and the third pulls apart, pivoting into the genesis of new moments and marks yet to unfold. Her gestures feel turbulent and atmospheric, lifting our gaze above ground, yet remain grounded in materiality. The prints, executed in multiple layers, reveal interacting worlds, a lexicon of abstraction that beckons us to explore.
Olivia Pinters ‘Conversation’ series will be launched at the David Krut Projects (DKP) Booth at Latitudes Art Fair 2026, in Johannesburg. For more information contact [email protected].
Read more about her 2025 solo project at DKP exhibition Notes in Flight.
Q & A With Olivia Pintér
Olivia Pintér’s Vessels of Memory
