ANDREW STRODE

Cars, Flowers and Cities ‑ A Collection of Short Stories

December 2, 1993

 

ANDREW STRODE
Pen & ink, watercolours on paper.
1993

In this exhibition, a student for the Natal Technikon presented a large collection of miniature watercolors. The show was titled Cars, Flowers and Cities ‑ A Collection of Short Stories and they were indeed detailed narratives that dealt with these and other themes. Private satires of the oppressiveness of the ‘big city’, the pervasiveness of the media, and the loneliness of a masturbatory life style, the drawings were at once both theatrical and internally psychological. Like scenes from dreams, each operated like a window into a single moment of a complex tale. In one, a small naked figure, his erect penis echoed by the curved fish he holds, stands poised in front of a stack of televisions.
Also on exhibition was an abstract experimental video, where the artist shot a film through the lens of a glass bottle. The footage showed a distorted image of a casual walk around the environs of Durban.