Remy Jungerman | Still Waters | Goodman Gallery Cape Town 2025

Goodman Gallery is delighted to present Remy Jungerman’s first solo exhibition in Cape Town, Still Waters. The show continues the artist’s exploration of the visual, historical and psycho-geographical connections between West Africa, Surinamese Maroon culture and 20th century Modernism.

Over the past 30 years Jungerman has woven thematic threads that are deeply connected to his birthplace, Suriname, placing fragments of the ceremonial textiles used in the Afro-Surinamese religious tradition Winti and other materials found in the African diaspora in direct contact with materials and imagery from 20th Century Modernism. At the core of his practice, Jungerman uses kaolin clay and the gridded Winti textiles, harnessing their symbolic presence in his work. Winti practitioners use the clay on their bodies for purification and wear specific fabric colour combinations that correlate with the four key elements: water, earth, air and forest.

Still Waters sees a new body of work where Jungerman presents a looser use of the kaolin clay, dripping the substance down panels covered in fabric. This produces multiple layers on the surface and points to the artist’s process in the studio as a libation. Born within this framework, the works become the consequence or “leftovers” of this spiritual offering. The water used in the clay mix also alludes to a to the ocean between the continents, invoking the story of how African peoples were taken as slaves to the Americas.

The abstraction in the work follows a rhythm Jungerman composes through lines that mirror the way the fabric falls on the body when worn.

Titles for works come from sonic influences and geographical locations of Surinamese Maroon settlements. The AGIDA series is guided by the low-tone, 2-metre-long drum that is played for a ritual that is connected to the Earth. This animates each panel, encouraging the viewer to see the tempo in each line.

Also included in this exhibition are a series of silkscreens Jungerman produced in 2011 that draw on the patterns and colors seen in the early 20th Century shoulder capes worn by Maroons during religious ceremonies.