LEXICON
Joint Exhibition
Claude Chandler // Corne Eksteen
33BREE Gallery - The Artist Gallery
33 Bree Street Cape Town, Entrance Waterkant Street
13 March - 11 April 2026
Claude Chandler // Corne Eksteen
33BREE Gallery - The Artist Gallery
33 Bree Street Cape Town, Entrance Waterkant Street
13 March - 11 April 2026
'Escape' //
Acrylic on Canvas //
102x76x4cm // R43700 Incl VAT// SOLD
|
'Osmosis' //
Acrylic and Aerosol Paint on Canvas //
200x140x4cm // R 78200 incl VAT // SOLD
|
'Lexicon' //
Acrylic and Aerosol Paint on Canvas //
180x110x4cm //
R66700 incl VAT //SOLD
|
'Apocope' //
Acrylic on Canvas //
123x100x5cm //
R52900 incl VAT
|
Bougi //
Acrylic on Canvas //
102x76x4cm // R34700 incl VAT
|
Lofi //
Acrylic on Canvas //
71x56x3.5cm // R32 200 Incl VAT
|
'Buoyant' //
Acrylic on Canvas //
119x84x3cm // R48300 incl VAT
|
Quantize //
Acrylic and Aerosol Paint on Canvas //
150x95x4cm // R59800// SOLD
|
Escape
Artist Statement
In early December I created ‘Escape’, a painting made on the cusp of my family moving into our first home. It was an exciting but daunting milestone, and after a long year of work and change the piece felt like a necessary exhale, a quiet desire to step away and to close one chapter while unknowingly opening another.
The weeks that followed the move were filled with holidays, unpacking, and DIYing. Central to this transition was the large overgrown garden that came with the house. What first felt overwhelming, gradually became a new site of escape and joy.
Returning to the studio after this pause, I was delighted to get back to work but begain without a fixed direction. After weeks of painting, formulating, and corresponding with Corne, a clear impulse emerged: an urge to paint flowers. Botanicals began threading themselves into the portraits, rooted in the lived shift from a small astroturf yard to a demanding, full garden requiring care and vision. It was also a period in which my mother assisted me with her green thumb; after years of living on opposite sides of the country, we finally shared the same city.
Hibiscus, frangipani, and bougainvillea, the “three kings” of the southern suburbs, slowly asserted their presence. All exist in or around my garden. The bougainvillea especially demanded a physical confrontation; after days of cutting it back and inevitably getting scratched and pricked, the self-portrait ‘Bougi’ emerged directly from that encounter.
This body of work ultimately reaffirmed my trust in process, allowing the work itself to lead. It also reflects back to my July residency with The Travelling Art Gallery. While I was then preoccupied with the experimental device of the cropped window, what truly carried forward was something quieter: the botanicals.
It is the flowers, not the frame, that remained
The weeks that followed the move were filled with holidays, unpacking, and DIYing. Central to this transition was the large overgrown garden that came with the house. What first felt overwhelming, gradually became a new site of escape and joy.
Returning to the studio after this pause, I was delighted to get back to work but begain without a fixed direction. After weeks of painting, formulating, and corresponding with Corne, a clear impulse emerged: an urge to paint flowers. Botanicals began threading themselves into the portraits, rooted in the lived shift from a small astroturf yard to a demanding, full garden requiring care and vision. It was also a period in which my mother assisted me with her green thumb; after years of living on opposite sides of the country, we finally shared the same city.
Hibiscus, frangipani, and bougainvillea, the “three kings” of the southern suburbs, slowly asserted their presence. All exist in or around my garden. The bougainvillea especially demanded a physical confrontation; after days of cutting it back and inevitably getting scratched and pricked, the self-portrait ‘Bougi’ emerged directly from that encounter.
This body of work ultimately reaffirmed my trust in process, allowing the work itself to lead. It also reflects back to my July residency with The Travelling Art Gallery. While I was then preoccupied with the experimental device of the cropped window, what truly carried forward was something quieter: the botanicals.
It is the flowers, not the frame, that remained
