Exhibition openings: !gaoken and It Shimmers in the Breach (a sketch for the approach to the edge)

03 Aug 2026
double-exhibitions-openings-fabian-and-gretchen
03 Aug 2026

The Michaelis Galleries is pleased to announce the upcoming openings of two exhibitions: !gaoken: seek the spoor by Fabian Saptouw (main gallery) and It Shimmers in the Breach (a sketch for the approach to the edge) by Gretchen van der Byl (upper gallery).

A shared opening event will happen on Thursday, 6 August, 17:00-19:00. All welcome, no RSVP required.

 
!gaoken: seek the spoor
An exhibition by Fabian Saptouw
 
This exhibition explores connections between the extinct |xam language, the land, and contemporary creative practice. Drawing on historical photographs and routes recorded in the Bleek and Lloyd Collection, the project uses drawing, painting, and direct encounters with place to reflect on the complex histories embedded within colonial archives. Through movement, sustained attention, and time spent in the landscape, the works invite new ways of engaging with the past, foregrounding lived experience as a form of knowledge and remembrance.
Opening date: 6 August 2026 – 17:00-19:00
Scheduled Performances: 7, 14, 21 August 11:00-14:00
Closing date: 24 August 2026
 
It Shimmers in the Breach (a sketch for the approach to the edge)

An exhibition by Gretchen van der Byl
 

This work is about how we make, or fail to make, meaning from the world around ourselves. Assembled from fragments of unrelated visual and textual information – both factual and fictional - brought into temporary relationship with each other, the work asks how painting might remain provisional and improvisational, fluid in its refusal of any singular or conclusive interpretive moment. Often articulating a moment preceding catastrophe, the images both resist our grasp and assert a persistent claim on our attention. The question becomes, if every image is merely a footnote to another, unknown story, then what might a collection of such fragments add up to? 
 

Opening date: 6 August 2026 – 17:00-19:00

Closing date: 27 August 2026