Bevan de Wet

Bevan de Wet (b. 1985) is a contemporary South African artist and printmaker, and the founder of Eleven Editions in Johannesburg. He works primarily with paper, often working with etching, relief printing, and papermakering, for which he often collaborates with Phumani Archive Mill. His work explores the idea that we, as a species, are becoming increasingly alienated from the natural environment and the spaces that we inhabit. Through paper-based works, he explores the breakdown of our ancestral values and the framgmented nature of our engagement with the world. He brings attention to the tensions between our built environment and the organic world. By working with paper, de Wet engages its materiality and pushes the boundaries of the surface.

Bevan de Wet (b.1985) is an artist and printmaker based in Johannesburg. He graduated with a BFA with distinction from Rhodes University in 2008. From 2011-2016, de Wet worked at the Artist Proof Studio in Johannesburg as a professional print technician, collaborator, and academic facilitator. In 2016 he founded a print workshop called Eleven Editions, where he also collaborates with other artists and publishes various projects. De Wet regularly works with Phumani Archive Mill, a paper-making research unit at the University of Johannesburg, where he produces his handmade paper work. He also teaches various printmaking modules at UJ. His practice centres around our increased sense of alienation from the natural environment and the spaces we inhabit, by exploring the breakdown of our ancestral values and the fragmented nature of our engagement with the world. Traversing the tensions between the organic and the constructed world, de Wet's work is realised through etching, relief printing, papermaking and drawing. He works primarily with paper, engaging its materiality and pushing the boundaries of the surface. De Wet works primarily with paper; with a focus on etching, relief printing, papermaking, drawing and installation. De Wet has exhibited extensively, and his work is held in a number of private and public collections including The Wits Art Museum, Nirox Foundation, ABSA, Amazon, the South African Embassy in Washington DC, Art Bank Collection South Africa, MOAD Museum of African Design, Exxaro, and the Ahmanson Foundation in Los Angeles. De Wet’s awards include: the Ampersand Foundation Fellowship (New York residency 2013); the Thami Mnyele Art on Paper award 2013; the ABSA L’atelier Merit Award 2014 (Sylt Foundation residency, Germany); the ImpAct Award for Visual Art from the Arts and Culture Trust 2014; and the Cill Rialaig Artists Residency in Ireland 2017.