Wilma Cruise

Collaboration History

Wilma Cruise first started working with David Krut Workshop (DKW) in 2007, resulting in her solo exhibition at David Krut Projects (DKP) SPLIT LON.NY.JHB in 2008. She has worked collaboratively with the DKW printers over the following years, as in 2010 and 2015. This collaboration led to her solo show Advice From A Caterpillar at DKP. In 2020 we hosted her solo exhibition Cruise x Krut 2020 – an exhibition of unique paper collages and sculptures from the artist’s studio, shown alongside editions published by DKW. She also has written texts such as Reading Ceramics, published by David Krut Publishing in 2006 in Messages and meaning in the MTN Art Collection. Cruise has also been part of various group exhibitions at DKP. 

Biography

Wilma Cruise was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1945, three years before the Nationalist Apartheid government was elected to power. For the following forty-five years she lived under a regime that was predicated on the public identity of people. Hence, it is not surprising that the question of identity beyond the publicly conferred image should be of concern to her. Her art functions in the psychic space between inner and outer worlds. She uses the body, the site of experience, as the vehicle for the exploration of meaning.

Brenda Schmahmann (2001) has said, “Her works explore the relationship between subjectivity and speech. They investigate the ways in which we express desire, trauma, loss and need, not only through verbal and written discourses but also through the body. The body is per­formative. It constitutes itself into a speech act – a statement of conscious and unconscious wants.”

Many of Wilma Cruise’s works on paper are results of a suggestion that she turns the notes and research drawings for works in other media into editions. ‘I love words and I love text. In all my drawings, in all my prints, the text is often foregrounded and those are the kinds of ideas that I would use for the sculpture. So, conceptually they’re the same’.

Exhibitions with David Krut Projects

Wilma Cruise, Split NY|LON|JHB (2008)

Untitled: DKW Summer Show (2011)

Imprint: Selected Editions and Works on Paper (2012)

Landscape Re-Orientation, 28 April – 30 June 2012, Landscape Re-Orientation (2012)

Advice From A Caterpillar by Wilma Cruise (2015)

Inch x Inch: an exhibition of small works (2016)

The Colourist Manifesto (2016)

Cruise at Krut (2020)

What’s the Word? Reading Text in Print-based Art (2023)

Online Exclusive | Wilma Cruise: Thinking with Animals (2024)

Blogs & Other Media

IMPRINT: Selected Editions and Works on Paper, Installation Images

David Krut Workshop Open for the Year

A conversation with Wilma Cruise about ‘Advice from a Catapillar’ and her ceramic art practice

Wilma Cruise – Advice from a caterpillar opening

David Krut ARCHIVE

FILM | The Making of ‘Word’ (2015-2020) by Wilma Cruise

Print of the Month August 2020 | Wilma Cruise | Word

David Krut Podcast: Animals, art & nature with Bernard Stiglingh & David Krut Listening Time: 35 min

Print of the Month November 2020 | Wilma Cruise | The 13th Hour Series

A look back at new editions, projects & collaborations from 2020

Beyond the Page: Woordfees 2024

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