DRIFT
a solo exhibition by Sulette van der Merwe
4 - 31 December 2025
Entropy against a grid | Acrylic on board | 49cm x 59cm.
We are pleased to announce Sulette van der Merwe’s solo exhibition, titled DRIFT, that will open at WORLDART on 4 December 2025.
Sulette, whose next exhibition will be a solo exhibition with the Blond Contemporary gallery in London’s West End, is known for paintings that resemble collages of charged scenes with a surrealist slant, painted with precision and eloquence.
Titled DRIFT, this exhibition encourages the viewer to step into an imagined space.
“To DRIFT is to be carried along by currents of water or air, or by the force of circumstances. In physics, Drift is the movement of charged particles under the influence of an electric field.
The digital age can be described as liquid. We have created an echo chamber for images that refuse to dissolve into the ephemeral. We are drifting on a cultural margin that is creative but also enveloping us, like a wave of data.
DRIFT is a metaphor for a skilful way to approach the conditions of current visual culture. A race car driver exploits the creative potential of drift through a driving technique where a driver intentionally oversteers a car to make it skid sideways through a corner while maintaining control. As a painter I have to navigate around corners in the virtual and physical world of visuals. It is about developing a practice and allowing the currents to influence the sideway motion of making art, it is intuitive and intentional.
I want the viewer to step into a strange garden that mirrors and reflects the paintings I made, but also allows them to see a part of my subconscious, to drift into an imagined space.”
DRIFT will be on view from 4 December 2025 at WORLDART, 68 Long Street, Cape Town.
Sulette van der Merwe (b. 1982) lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. She enjoys philosophy and art history, and recent works explore the theme of Heterotopia, a concept used to describe spaces that have more layers of meaning than the immediately obvious. Pop art, surrealism and digital culture also feature prominently in her paintings and video animations.
“I am interested in the narrative abstractions that arise when information from disparate spaces such as illustration, internet sourced images and photography are combined. It is an intuitive and conceptually playful experience to observe the cross chatter between the physicality of painting and the ephemeral nature of the online experience.”
EDUCATION
2004 Dip Fine Arts. Tshwane University of Technology
EXHIBITIONS
2025 Bloom and Bliss KKNK National Arts Festival,
2025 London Art Fair with Blond Contemporary London
2024 VOLTA Art Fair, New York, with Blond Contemporary London
2024 Our Archaic future Blond Contemporary London, London
2024 Surreal synapse at WORLDART
2022 Investec Cape Town Art Fair
2021 Node at WORLDART
2020 Turbine Art Fair (online)
2019 Summer group show, WORLDART, Cape Town
2019 “nano 1.3”, Barnard Gallery, Cape Town
For more information, contact Charl Bezuidenhout at info@worldart.co.za or on +27 (0)21 423 3075 or visit www.worldart.co.za