Cape Town Art Fair

February 20, 2026 - February 22, 2026

Cape Town International Convention Centre

Participation in a group show at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair 2026 where Cape Town based Association of Visual Arts Gallery (AVA) presented the work of The Printing Girls (TPG), an all-female collective of South African-based artists who work with print in experimental ways.  

Visit the AVA website information on the exhibition.

Read the catalogue

Emma Willemse

Artist statement

AVA Gallery at Cape Town Art Fair

The works on exhibition as part of the AVA Gallery’s booth at the Cape Town Art Fair are part of my continued investigation of the motif of the boat and the meanings it generates in the context of displacement. 

In The Wake, a paper pulp drawing of the remnant of the found dugout canoe was created by closely observing the wood remnant. The Wake alludes to the numerous myths, legends and rituals imbedded in several cultures, in which the boat signifies the journey to the afterlife.

The title of the work has a dual reference - the wake of a boat is the patterns formed as the boat displaces the water by moving through it. A wake is also referring to a vigil, a ritual held beside the body of someone who has died. In this sense, it could be said that the fragile paper pulp drawing in The Wake is keeping a vigil for the decayed and ‘deceased’ makoro.

“That Willemse conceives of the boat as a physical and psychological ‘motif’, pertaining to both the conscious and unconscious realm, reveals the degree to which the artist has densified the human condition.”  

Ashraf Jamal (2025): Stoicism and Vulnerability – Art as Praise-song, MOL 048, Art Times (https://arttimes.co.za/stoicism-and-vulnerability-art-as-praise-song-ingrid-bolton-and-emma-willemse/)