Page 15 - Art First: Karel Nel: Observe

the space. The demands of the circular space meant that the trap doors
allowing entrance fold upwards and sideways, like an elaborate but ef-
ficient wooden origami. These unexpected, irregular pieces start up into
the space of the room like abstract sculptures, propped up, when needed
by wooden struts (9). The large trapdoors follow a curved and angular
geometry that is not strictly Euclidean, and which look forward to the
9 conundrums faced by astronomers who in recent years have needed to
create receivers that could fold up into a rocket capsule and then unfurl
when deployed in space. Nel speaks about their strange projection into
the circular space, as though presences at the portal as one enters the
inner and uppermost room (10).
Nel’s own studio, a long barrel-vaulted space flooded with air and
light (12), has its own unusual presences: the large, wooden Dan recep-
10 tacle, from Liberia, suggests a purpose that is not evident to the outside
eye. The immaculately chiselled ridges that form the base of the bowl
suggest its use as a technology whose purpose is now elusive. Mounted
upright, the wooden Dan dish (11) seems both archaic and contempo-
rary, a receptor for knowledge now unnamed.
In Studio as observatory, a shaft of light penetrates the dim space.
Its precision seems emblematic of consciousness, and the human drive to
11 make sense of the world: the light divided from the darkness; the night
from the day; the firmament from the waters; the waters from the land. The
studio is a place of quiet inner observation and contemplative actions that
form a quest, an ascent required to understand levels of consciousness.
The study of light and darkness is central to art and astronomy in both the
LEFT: Enfolded space detail physical and metaphysical senses.

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