Kobus has long admired the paintings of Andries Gouws and he was delighted to have been invited to write an article on a particular work by this painter. Originally entitled Grahamstown Residence Room with Red Curtains by Andries Gouws, Kobus has given this painting a new title -Turning on the Light - for this article. Andries generously allowed Kobus to use the image of this painting on the cover of his latest collection of poems, A Book of Rooms (Deep South, 2014) This is what Kobus has written about the painting:
It is an oil on canvas painting which dates from 2009-2011. It is a small room with a narrow single bed. The bed is unmade. As if the occupant had only just got up and left.
A tall window leans over the bed. There is a red curtain drawn across the window. To keep the colour of the room in.
It is daylight beyond the room. The light has soaked through the curtain. The curtain glows. As if something more than sunlight were shining out there. Beyond the red fabric and the old walls of the building. There is a switch against the wall on one side of the window. Just above a small set of drawers. There is an electric plug on the other side of the curtain, just above a small table. The light leaks out from all around the edges of the closed curtain.
Leaking into the room. Filling the room up. And I wonder who has plugged the day in at the wall. And switched it on.
And what would happen to the bed with the red pillows and the red bedspread and the little table and the small set of drawers if the same person were to turn off the switch against the wall and pull out the plug? Would the room stop working? And what would the original occupant of the room do when he returned and found that his room no longer came on? Is it possible I wonder – looking at the room – this old red room that is so familiar to me – as familiar as if I were the one who had just got up and stepped outside – to stretch my legs maybe, or share a joke with a neighbour, or just to stand in the cold dark passageway away from the light for a moment – Is it possible to start the light up again once it has been turned off?
Copies of A Book of Rooms (Deep South, 2014). can be ordered from kobusman@telkomsa.net.
(1) Andries Gouws (b. 1952 Johannesburg) is a major South African painter who studied art at the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunst, Amsterdam, Netherlands,. His works, greatly admired by Kobus Moolman, are represented in major art museums in SA.
Kobus Moolman (1964
- )
is a multiple award-winning poet, playwright and short
story writer. He holds a PhD and is a senior
lecturer in creative writing in the Department of English at the UKZN, Pietermaritzburg
He has published five individual collections
of poetry: Time Like Stone
(University of Natal Press, 2000); Feet of
the Sky (Brevitas, 2004); Separating the Seas (University of
KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2007);
Light and After (Deep South, 2010) and Left
Over (Dye Hard Press, 2013).
He has also published two collections of plays, as well as editing the
journal Fidelities from 1995
to 2007 and the anthology, Tilling the Hard
Soil (UKZN Press, 2010), containing poetry, prose and art by
South African writers living with disabilities. During this period he received several awards, including the Ingrid
Jonker Prize, the South African Literary Award for poetry and the BBC African
Theatre Award. At present he works as an academic in English Studies at the
University of KwaZulu-Natal in
Pietermaritzburg.
Between 2000 and 2014 he published a
number of books. These include:
Time
like Stone. Pietermaritzburg:
University of
KwaZulu-Natal
5
Poetry.
Johannesburg
Feet
of the Sky.
Howick: Brevitas Press. 2003
Blind
Voices: a collection of radio plays.
Johannesburg
2008.
Anatomy. (Limited edition, illustrated chapbook.) Lidgetton: Caversham
Press.
2010.
Light and After. Grahamstown: Deep
South .
2010.
(editor) Tilling
the Hard Soil: Poetry and Prose by South African Writers Living with
Disabilities. Pietermaritzburg:
University of
KwaZulu-Natal
2013.
Left Over. Johannesburg