Gavin Rain
Encyclopedia
Gavin Rain is a contemporary South African artist, working primarily in acrylic
Acrylic paint
Acrylic paint is fast drying paint containing pigment suspension in acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry...

, best known for his Neo-Pointillist style paintings.

Life and work

Gavin Rain was born in Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. He studied art formally at the University of Cape Town
University of Cape Town
The University of Cape Town is a public research university located in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. UCT was founded in 1829 as the South African College, and is the oldest university in South Africa and the second oldest extant university in Africa.-History:The roots of...

, under artists such as Jane Alexander and South African art historian Dr. Jacqueline Nolte (although majoring in neuropsychology
Neuropsychology
Neuropsychology studies the structure and function of the brain related to specific psychological processes and behaviors. The term neuropsychology has been applied to lesion studies in humans and animals. It has also been applied to efforts to record electrical activity from individual cells in...

) and at Ruth Prowse Art School, in Woodstock, Cape Town. Having painted from a young age, Rain only arrived at his neo-pointillist style in 2004, taking roughly two years to formulate the style. In various interviews, Rain cites two main narratives in his work:
  • Hidden in plain sight - The main purpose for Rain developing a new style was to force viewers to acknowledge that part of the narrative of each painting is 'hidden in plain sight', whereby it is impossible to see the subject of the painting until the viewer takes a few steps back (see images below):

  • Pseudo digital - The vast majority of Rain's neo-pointillist works are depicted using rows of dots in a pattern similar to that of a television or computer screen (see above images), emulating a digital image
    Digital image
    A digital image is a numeric representation of a two-dimensional image. Depending on whether or not the image resolution is fixed, it may be of vector or raster type...

    . The emphasis of the narrative in the work is on the gaps between the dots as a way of highlighting the lack of information presented by a digital image's necessarily distinct intervals of tone/colour.

In addition to exhibitions, Rain's work is available in galleries in Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Milan and Venice.
In 2009 Rain was chosen by the 2010 Fine Art Group (licensed under FIFA
FIFA
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association , commonly known by the acronym FIFA , is the international governing body of :association football, futsal and beach football. Its headquarters are located in Zurich, Switzerland, and its president is Sepp Blatter, who is in his fourth...

) to complete 12 portraits for the 2010 FIFA World Cup
2010 FIFA World Cup
The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the 19th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national association football teams. It took place in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010...

, taking place in South Africa, alongside artists such as Esther Mahlangu and Keith Calder.

54th Venice Biennale

Rain was invited to participate in the 54th Venice Biennale of 2011 by Fabio Anselmi, co-curator of the Costa Rica pavilion. For the occasion, Rain completed a 2m x 2m neo-pointillist piece of Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi, AC is a Burmese opposition politician and the General Secretary of the National League for Democracy. In the 1990 general election, her National League for Democracy party won 59% of the national votes and 81% of the seats in Parliament. She had, however, already been detained...

, the Burmese opposition politician. Each point or dot of the work represented a country. Rain was picked for the Costa Rican pavilion before the selection of the South African pavilion (entering for the first time) was announced, amidst some controversy as to the choice of curator.

Selected exhibitions

  • 2005, 2006 Solo exhibition: Veo Gallery, de Waterkant, Cape Town
  • 2007 Solo exhibition: Worldart Gallery, Johannesburg
  • 2008 Solo exhibition: Kizo Gallery, Heritage festival, Kwazulu-Natal
  • 2009 African Wave exhibitions: Treviso, Trieste, Venice and Milan
  • 2010 Miart Art Now, Milan
  • 2011 Art Chicago, Art Accessibile Milan, 54th Venice Biennale

External links

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