Jacob Van Schalkwyk

Jacob van Schalkwyk” (b. 1979) is an artist and writer whose work bridges abstraction, mathematics, and mystical form. His multidisciplinary practice encompasses painting, drawing, video, sculpture, and installation, challenging conventional narratives in Western art history. Van Schalkwyk studied Drawing at Pratt Institute (BFA) in Brooklyn, NY, and earned a MAVA in Sculpture from the University of Stellenbosch, where he has also taught since 2016. 

Jacob van Schalkwyk (b.1979) grew up in Pretoria, and is currently based in Cape Town, South Africa. He studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn New York where he completed a BFA in Drawing (2003). He went on to live and work in New York, returning to South Africa in 2008. Van Schalkwyk subsequently started working in lithographic ink, using it as his primary drawing and painting medium. He spent 9 years in New York City experimenting with audio and visual performance techniques. Highlights include two stints as visiting artist at CalArts in 2005 and 2006, performing at Central Park Summerstage, the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2006, and touring South Africa with The Last Poets, also in 2006. He returned to South Africa – and to drawing – in 2008, where he exhibited regularly at GALLERY AOP and DKP in Johannesburg between 2011 and 2018. He fronted the Afrikaans punk band Jaco+Z-dog from 2009-2011. His novel The Alibi Club was published in Afrikaans and English by Penguin Random House in 2014. Van Schalkwyk is a research affiliate of the University of Stellenbosch, where he served as Head of Fine Arts between 2019-2020.  Into the dangerously ephemeral world of new abstraction, Jacob van Schalkwyk reintroduces ritual. Inspired by Qhang Qhang, a pigment dug from basalt, mixed with blood in ancient Khoisan rock paintings, Van Schalkwyk reminds us that abstraction is, after Jerry Saltz, a visionary tool – indeed, ‘one of the greatest visionary tools ever invented by human beings to imagine, decipher, and depict the world.’ It is not enough to say that abstraction expresses the unsayable. This is true. But abstraction is also a cipher for a truth that surpasses Reason, Consciousness, Meaning, Value, in a secularized world.  Combining ritual clay – ibomvu – and oil on canvas, Van Schalkwyk reconnects painting to the earth. Used in ancient Africa as skincare, a medicinal treatment for food poisoning, pain and mineral deficiency, in the creation of sacred pottery, ibomvu expresses the integrality of the body and art – the fact that art is an embodied form. For Van Schalkwyk, this focus is vital, for it frees expression from mere commodification, and channels art’s far greater consolatory power.  Art is human, all too human. Art is not merely a brand name, not merely ‘decorator-friendly’, a clever idea, some ‘frictionless’ trade exchange, worse, mere ‘visual Muzak’. For Jerry Saltz, rather, art changes one’s consciousness. Abstract art in particular can be life altering, precisely because it thrives ‘in the interstices between the ideal and the real, symbol and substance, the optic and the haptic, imagination and observation.’ Art at its best is a vision force.  Jacob van Schalkwyk fuses clay and oil, earth and soul, dream and substance. For him, art is a ceremonial practice. If the world is a void, it is because it lacks feeling, because it is denatured and vapid, cold, heartless, pointless. Which is why a fusion of ritual and art is vital, why in his art paint is raw, lines broken, squares off-kilter, the core thrust tangential.  Jacob van Schalkwyk began his collaboration with David Krut Workshop in July 2016 and was featured in both David Krut Projects’ (DKP) Curated and Limited Editions Sections at the FNB Joburg Art Fair 2016.  SUNSETS, his solo show at DKP at the Montebello Design Centre in Cape Town in September 2016, comprised of works on paper and accompanying materials that continue his study of category theory in relation to abstraction. Van Schalkwyk exhibited in the group show entitled /ˈatməsˌfir/ at DKP New York and subsequently opened his first solo project and print launch entitled DOLCEFARNIENTE at DKP Parkwood on the 9th of March 2017. DOLCEFARNIENTE has traveled to DKP Cape Town, which opened on the 4th of October 2017. 

News

A Landmark in Abstraction | The Making of ‘Constraint’ by Jacob van Schalkwyk
Apr. 9, 2018

A LANDMARK IN ABSTRACTION [caption id="attachment_47287" align="alignleft" width="342"] Constraint, 2018, Handspun, hand-woven mohair, 2000 x 1300mm, Edition of 3 plus...

Tags: abstract, colour, jacobvanschalkwyk, tapestry
Audiovisual Showcase: Never Read The News Alone
Nov. 29, 2017

Written by Alex Abrahams On Sunday 19 November 2017, David Krut Projects in Cape Town hosted an audiovisual showcase called Never...

Tags: David krut Artist Features, David Krut Projects, David Krut Projects Cape Town, Installation, Installation Art, Jacob van Schalkwyk, live performance, Montebello Design Center, News, Performance, Performance art
Artist Series E04 | Jacob van Schalkwyk Video Art
Nov. 17, 2017

  Within his Solo Project and Print Launch Dolcefarniente, artist  Jaocb van Schalkwyks has included three video based artworks in...

Tags: David Krut Projects Cape Town, Installation Art, Jacob van Schalkwyk, video, video art
Oh! Sweet Nothing
Oct. 25, 2017

Jaco van Schalkwyk’s travelling solo show, DOLCEFARNIENTE, explores an ideal state of mind.  Cape Town-based author-artist Jaco van Schalkwyk’s 2014...

Tags: Alibi Club, Cape Town, David Krut Projects Cape Town, DOLCEFARNIENTE, Elle Decor, Jacob van Schalkwyk, Klaar Gepraat, Monument to things that Dissapear, Multimedia
Allsorts – a painting by Jacob van Schalkwyk
Oct. 12, 2017

David Krut Projects Cape Town recently opened Jacob van Schalkwyk’s Solo Project and Print Launch, DOLCEFARNIENTE. The traveling retrospective first...

Tags: David Krut Projects Cape Town, Installation, Jaco van Schalkwyk, lithographic ink, painting
Abstraction at David Krut Projects
Sep. 1, 2017

David Krut Projects has collaborated with a wide range of artists working in the realm of abstraction. Abstract art uses a...

Tags: abstract art, article, Jaco van Schalkwyk, podcast, Stephen Hobbs
Artist Series E02: Jacob van Schalkwyk | DOLCEFARNIENTE: Solo Projects and Print Launch
Aug. 22, 2017

https://soundcloud.com/user-486562414/artist-series-e02-jacob-van-schalkwyk-dolcefarniente-solo-projects-and-print-launch Cape Town based artist Jacob van Schalkwyk speaks about his collaboration with David Krut Workshop and the conceptualization of...

Tags: Exhibition, Film, Installation, Jaco van Schalkwyk, podcast, Prints, sculpture
‘Art Years are like Dog Years’, 2006 – 2017 by Jacob van Schalkwyk
Jun. 1, 2017

01.06.2017 Art Years are like Dog Years, 2006 – 2017   Art Years are like Dog Years, 2006 – 2017...

Tags: Film
READY!!!!! Jacob van Schalkwyk’s etchings: “Waltz” and “W”
Apr. 7, 2017

[caption id="attachment_43779" align="aligncenter" width="384"] Waltz, 4 plate sugarlift aquatint, 66 x 54cm, Edition of 12[/caption] For many years, Van Schalkwyk...

Tags: Arts on Main, David Krut Print Workshop, David Krut Projects Arts on Main, DKW, Exhibition, Jillian Ross, Printmaking
Jacob van Schalkwyk: Liftup 0214187773. Temporary Sculpture for OpenDialogBox
Oct. 19, 2016

On Monday 19 October 2016 there was an intriguing intervention on Buitenkant Street in the East City by Jacob van...

Tags: outdoor art, site-specific
Patricia Schonstein X Jacob van Schalkwyk – Poetry Reading and Walkabout
Oct. 6, 2016

[caption id="attachment_42831" align="alignnone" width="1314"] Jacob van Schalkwyk, "Regrowth", 2016, Lithographic ink on paper, 760 x 560mm[/caption] 06.10.2016 On Saturday 1...

Tags: andre breton, DKCT, lithographic ink drawings, patricia schonstein, poetry
Jacob van Schalkwyk at DK Cape Town and JHB Bookstore Galleries 2016-10
Oct. 4, 2016

04.10.16 Blogger: Jessie Cohen We are currently exhibiting different series' of new works by Jacob van Schalkwyk simultaneously at our Cape...

Tags: David Krut Projects Cape Town, David Krut Projects Johannesburg
Jacqueline Flint in conversation with Jacob van Schalkwyk 2016-10
Oct. 4, 2016

04.10.16 This conversation accompanies SUNSETS - a series of 6 drawings in lithographic ink on paper by Jacob van Schalkwyk - shown...

Tags: David Krut Projects Cape Town
Jacob van Schalkwyk’s “Sunsets” Exhibition Opening 2016-09
Sep. 21, 2016

"Sunsets" is van Schalkwyk's first solo show with David Krut Projects, which opened on Saturday 17 September 2016 at David...
What went down at the FNB Joburg Art Fair? 2016-09
Sep. 12, 2016

12.09.16 Blogger: Jessie Cohen From the moment the FNB Joburg Art Fair (JAF) kicked off, we had a fabulous range of responses...

Tags: David Krut Print Workshop, David Krut Projects, David Krut Projects Johannesburg, FNB Joburg Art Fair 2016
Master printer feature: Jillian Ross 2016-10
Aug. 16, 2016

28.10.16 Blogger: Jessie Cohen Master printer feature: Jillian Ross [caption id="attachment_42960" align="aligncenter" width="640"] DKW master printer Jillian Ross[/caption] For profiling Ross,...

Tags: David Krut Print Workshop, David Krut Projects Arts on Main, Jillian Ross
“Making art is like walking a tightrope”: DKW journey into the unknown with Jacob van Schalkwyk 2016-07
Jul. 12, 2016

12.07.16 Blogger: Jessie Cohen Finally, we have the pleasure of hosting visual artist Jacob van Schalkwyk in our workshop. The collaboration...

Tags: David Krut Print Workshop, David Krut Projects Arts on Main, David Krut Projects Johannesburg

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