StateoftheART is proud to present 'Tell Me A Story' an exhibition of paintings by Mila Posthumus on the Exhibition Wall.

There is a sense, in this collection, of having stumbled upon a private moment. The moments captured are small and unposed, the subjects caught up in their own thoughts; distracted.  Although they are often painted looking directly at the viewer, drawing him in, there is detachment from the viewer; lending the work a voyeuristic quality. What is seen unmistakably forms part of a larger narrative and the subject's distraction opens up a space for the viewer to fill and weave a story of his/her own.

"My work is influenced, as any artist's will be, by my perception of my surroundings and reality. It covers many subject matters, from land- and cityscapes, to still lives to people. The ever changing and emotionally complex South African landscape offers endless inspiration as well as my more personal, immediate surroundings - children and home." - Mila Posthumus

Opening 4th September @6pm

04.09.2014 till 20.09.2014

61 Shortmarket Street,
(between Loop & Bree)
Cape Town.

Gallery hours: 10am-5pm weekdays, 10am-2pm Saturdays.

The exhibition will be available to preview  online through the StateoftheART website from the 1st of September.

For more information please contact Jennifer on 0724709272 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Indie games are fast becoming a trend in South Africa, catching on from the overseas markets. These days, children and adults alike are playing mobile games as never before. People are always hungry for something different, which is where indie games – or ‘independent’ games – come in, providing players with something other than the mass-produced mainstream products.

Now, Somerset West can boast with its very own game studio that started turning its cogs in February this year. For its first month of existence, the studio was run out of the founder’s mother’s basement – typical indie game studio protocol, if history is anything to go by. Now, running from a house close to De Hoop Primary School, the studio focuses on creating mobile games (such as their recently released Afrikaans game, Fanie de Beer) and has oodles of style, creativity, skill and initiative.

While the Apmil Game Studio has only been up and running for a few months, the people who daily put their shoulders to its wheels have been building up relationships for the last three-and-a-half years. Even though the studio officially started up in February, the idea of an indie game studio had been brewing in the mind of Studio Head, Pierre Bezuidenhout, since 2011. Pierre started lecturing in the Animation Department of Cape Town’s City Varsity in 2011 – and this is where he met the three students who would later join him in this grand venture.

Pierre, as leader of the team, is Apmil’s Programmer and Technical Director. He has previously worked in advertising and animation for Wicked Pixels in Woodstock and held the position of lecturer at Concept Interactive as well as at City Varsity. His impressive skill set includes a sharp eye for detail as well as design flair and programming aptitude in different digital languages and platforms – he is also quite the people-person. Altus Barry is the Technical Lead, taking charge of rigs, renders and other related tasks. Mabet van Zijl did her major in 3D Narrative and, as Generalist, leads Apmil’s marketing and writing in between her usual workload. Louren Hattingh takes the roles of Lead Animator and Concept Artist. While each person has their area to lead, the workflow runs with a ‘rock-paper-scissors’-style in which one falls under the delegation of another while dealing with respective area-specific tasks. Sitting around a whiteboard, each armed with a marker, they discuss character design, story line, player motivation, level arrangement, time constraints and load division before jumping in with the actual development.

The first released game, Fanie de Beer, is a 100% physics-driven, full 3D, indie puzzle game with a distinct South African flavour. Playing as Fanie de Beer, a 12-year-old farm-boy, the player utilizes simple little rocks by tapping once on the screen to clear best friend Jaco Kriel’s fields of strategically placed, ancient landmines. Built in Unity, the game takes place in a single day – with the story starting early in the morning and ending in the evening – transporting the player through a dynamic day/night cycle and colourful, saturated farm fields as they progress through the 84 levels, meeting new mine types and increasingly difficult challenges as they go along. Written and designed in Afrikaans, then carefully translated into true farm-style English, this game is unique, fun and proudly South African. The demo is available for download from the Google Play Store, while the full game can be purchased on Samsung Apps and Amazon.

The next game in the pipeline is different from Fanie de Beer in virtually every way. Where Fanie is a very colourful 3D puzzle game with just enough back-story to set the player up for the context and flavour of the game, the current project is a heavily story-driven platform-game that takes place in a fictional world made up of parallaxing silhouettes and strange characters.

Apmil Game Studio has not only been created as a platform to build games, but also as a springboard for fellow animators, developers, designers and illustrators. It’s a breeding ground for collaboration, ideas, innovation and learning. Each person hones their skills while doing fun and challenging work through creating games and stories as well as fulfilling the creative needs of small to medium-sized businesses in the Western Cape and Gauteng.

Apmil Game Studio services include animation, app creation, game creation, rendering/stills, asset creation, video editing and UX. The creative division of Apmil, led by artist Janet Botes and writer Michelle Albinson, offers logo design, graphic design, online/web design, interactive design, writing, editing, proofreading and illustration.

Apmil prides itself on being different: Fresh ideas, innovative applications, strange and wonderful games – they are all things that receive the studio’s love and attention to detail. To find out more or to get involved, contact Pierre Bezuidenhout at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call him on 082 499 3133

Studio ingredients:[A]ltus makes the bus and [P]ierre drives the bus; [M]abet takes the bus t[i]ckets and [L]ouren makes the bus move. Thus, [apmil].

Free demo: Google Play – bit.ly/fanie_demo 
Full version: Samsung Apps – bit.ly/fanie
Official Trailer: Youtube – bit.ly/fanie_trailer 
Apmil page: Apmil/Fanie – apmil.co.za/fanie-de-beer 

PRESS RELEASE
12 June 2014

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

StateoftheART is proud to present 'A Reflection Of Us', an exhibition of mixed media, drawings and paintings by Lisette Forsyth on the Exhibition Wall.

"The present and the past meet by some divine intervention called art . A reflection of us. I work on found surfaces from 1860s Government Gazette pages to scrap pieces of wood. The surface dictates the subject: the people, their body language, unique style and characters all develop into a perfect match." - Lisette Forsyth

Lisette constantly experiments with media and subject matter. Her compulsion to recycle pushes her towards mixed media. The contrasts and contradictions of Cape Town and its people provide the inspiration for her work.

Opening 3rd July @ 6pm closes Saturday 19th July @2pm

61 Shortmarket Street, Cape Town.
Gallery hours: 10am-5pm weekdays, 10am-2pm Saturdays.

The exhibition will run concurrently online from the 2nd July - 19th of July.
For more information please contact Jennifer on 0724709272 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tucked away behind a small shopping centre in Sunningdale is a theatre, its part of Elkanah House School and the performances staged are far from the average school productions. No squeaky can’t-hold-a-note voices or forgotten lines with a teacher prompting little Jimmy for every other sentence but fresh, youthful and exceptionally professional and very polished performances.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is almost at the end of a 10-Day Run. An amazing cast of high school students in a more than professional performance of a familar musical supported by a first class orchestra delivers entertainment for audiences of all ages.  Superbly acted with the perfect balance of serious storyline and laugh out loud comedy, the enjoyment of the cast is conveyed to the audience in a unique and special way. The foot tapping musical score, brought to life by the live orchestra not pre-recorded synthetic sounds  so often used in so many schools, amateur and even professional productions carries the audience into the musical itself creating first class, truly enjoyable entertainment. Everything a theatre production should be is brought to the table and delivered to the tee.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is another masterpiece from this little gem of a theatre that is fast growing up.  This and past productions leave audiences spellbound and changing the mind-set of what a school production is; any preconceptions are thrown away as soon as the show starts and standing ovations are common and well deserved. One leaves the theatre wanting more with the audience questioning “was that really a school production?” The answer is no, it wasn’t  a school production but a production from a school that is passionate about theatre, with a staff that know the theatre and a team bold enough to tackle the most challenging of projects that say “if we are going to put on a show then it’s going to be the best”

Seven Brides for seven brothers is sadly drawing to a close, last shows are on Saturday 17th May, future productions are in the pipeline. Keep an eye open for the next show and when you attend the next production, and if you have waited all this time to go you are perfectly allowed to kick yourself for not doing so sooner.  You will soon agree that this little theatre, tucked away behind a shopping centre is a real gem!  

{pp}COOK FOR PEACE, SUNDAY 16 MARCH 2008

CayleeTalpert of SAUJS and Waleed Majiet Al-Yamani of the Centre for Islamic Studies, University of JHB currently studying for his Masters in Islamic Studies, were the initiators of the Cook for Peace Project.

They met last year at a function hosted by the Desmond Tutu Diversity Trust (www.desmondtutudiversitytrust.co.za). “The Youth Think Tank”

The Desmond Tutu Diversity Trust (DTDT) constitutes a response to the challenges of racism, prejudices, intolerance and hostilities entrenched into the South African society by decades of diversity mismanagement under the apartheid regime.

 

{pp}David Krut Publishing is proud to announce the publication of the thirteenth book and Educational Supplement in the TAXI Art Books series, TAXI-013 Diane Victor, by Elizabeth Rankin and Karen von Veh.

The book will be launched at David Krut Projects, 142 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood, on Saturday 1 March at 11 am.

 

{pp}David Krut Publishing (DKP) is pleased to be at Design Indaba EXPO for the first time.

The company aims to promote – through the TAXI Art Books and other publications on the arts, design and architecture – the work of South African artists, writers on the arts, and graphic designers. DKP’s publications have been consistently well received both locally and abroad and are regarded as important contributions to the archive on contemporary South African art history.

 

{pp}The world I paint has no future.
It is a self-contained place without apparent movement.
Yet on closer scrutiny, movement of a sort can be perceived.
A receding pull from the past, to the past.
This pull stems from the exploration of the old roads, an attempt to discover among these paths that which has been forgotten or overlooked.
Strangely, when discovered, the relics that inspire my world carry with them qualities that resonate with the uncertainty we usually associate with the future; their unfamiliarity stems from their connection with a now distant world. - Nowicki 2007

{pp}SKILL SET: Knowledge Resource and Educational Series is a new multi-volume series for designers. Using a practicable, outcomes-based approach, Skill Set will provide instruction in various fields of design, including graphic design, stage design, fashion design and industrial design.

Skill Set will feature locally relevant content, as well as commentary and work by leading local design professionals. The series is aimed at a broad audience that includes learners at secondary schools and tertiary institutions, as well as emerging and experienced professionals.

 

{pp}An inner city regeneration project is set to rejuvenate public areas of Hillbrow, Berea and Yeoville while creating over 1000 jobs.