Rina Stutzer

Rina Stutzer, born in 1976, completed her MA (FA) with a distinction in Painting at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, where she was also a part time-lecturer for seven years. Apart from her private art practice, Stutzer forms part of the Dionysus Sculpture Works art studio and foundry, as a creative advisor and studio artist, based in Pretoria.

Stutzer works in variety of mediums which investigate and question ideas of permanence within the comprehensive theme of the ‘nomadic’ within a South African context. Her artworks currently explore the ‘ever-changing image’ through painting, sculpture and installation mediums.

Her most recent sculptural installation titled There is no Time Like the Present, is a super mirror stainless steel diptych of mirroring continents engaged in a visual dialogue, charged with an ever-changing present. Constructed over a two year period and completed in 2018, the installation is installed at the Mall of Africa in Midrand. Each structure measures 5.5 m high, 5.27 m wide and 2.3 m in depth. Stutzer has achieved a number of accolades in recognition for her painting and sculpting, and since 2000 has participated in numerous exhibitions across South Africa, as well as in Australia, France, Great Britain, India and The Netherlands.

She was awarded the Bettie Cilliers-Barnard Bursary from the University of Pretoria for excellence in painting in 1999 and attained first prize in the Ekurhuleni Fine Arts Award Competition in 2007. Stutzer was selected for the Rendezvous: Focus Painting award, comprising of a French residency at the Cité Internationale de Arts in Paris, in 2013. In 2014 she received the Southern Africa Stainless Steel Development Association (SASSDA) Art Project award for her permanent stainless steel installation titled Sway. In the same year she was invited to attend a residency at the Nirox Sculpture Park in the Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO World Heritage site. In 2016 her soft sculpture installation, Pinned Transitory II, was selected as part of the South African pavilion at the Venice Biennale for Architecture, Reporting from the Front.

A short biography of Rina Stutzer

Rina Stutzer (born 1976) completed her BA(FA) at The University of Pretoria in 1999 and went on to complete her MA (FA) at the same university in 2007. Since graduation, she has been lecturing part-time in painting and drawing in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Pretoria.  She works as a full time artist, focusing on her own creative process and production, investigating both sculptural form and painting. In her recent paintings, she has been exploring ‘painting’ with acid as an ever-changing image on copper plate as well as on paper. These images are presented alongside digital prints of the painting at the time of ‘completion’ (from when they are no longer actively worked on.) However, during which the patina and subsequent oxidisation processes (due to the acid content and its reaction to the metal) the original images continue to be altered and thus grow or change in appearance. She predominantly works with the ‘nomadic’ as a theme, exploring this within a South African context. The nomadic is for Stutzer more than people on the move, but refers to movement on a mental level in a way that is almost liminal. Stutzer shows an enquiring mind and a dedication to the means of painting and the forms of sculpture that makes her one of the innovative artists of her generation.

Stutzer has achieved a number of accolades including: The Bettie Cilliers-Barnard Bursary from the University of Pretoria for excellence in painting  (1999), the SASOL New Signatures Art Competition: People’s Choice Award (1999). She was awarded the first prize in the Ekurhuleni Fine Arts Award Competition (2007) and achieved a distinction in Painting for her Masters degree in Fine Arts from the University of Pretoria in the same year. In 2012 she was awarded the Rendezvous: Focus Painting bursary (also named after the late doyen of painting in South Africa, Bettie Ciliers-Barnard). This prestigious bursary will afford her the opportunity to attend a painting residency in France in 2013. She has participated in a number of group exhibitions since 2000 in South Africa as well as in Great Britain and in The Netherlands. Stutzer is represented by Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg.

Gordon Froud 2012