Biography
Lyrene Kühn-Botma is an
artist, lecturer, and researcher working with and combining traditional
printing media, drawing and digital drawing in her art practice. She is
currently employed as a lecturer and program director at the Department of
Fine Arts at the University of the Free State.
In 2021 the artist received
her M.A. Fine Arts degree (cum laude) at the University of the Free State in
Bloemfontein, South Africa, and received the prestigious Dean’s medal award for
the highest achieving master’s degree in the entirety of the faculty of the
Humanities. She has participated in many exhibitions as well as national
competitions in South Africa, being a semi regular participant in the SASOL New
Signatures art competition since 2013. In 2022 Kühn-Botma served as the
internal University of the Free State curator and participating artist in Good
Neighbours, the Open Lab II Winter Exhibition at the NIROX Sculpture Park
in Johannesburg, South Africa.
ARTIST
STATEMENT
Experiences
of loss grief and personal strain is what I ponder on in my artistic practice. Through
my creative research I investigate personal experiences of loss, pain, and
instances of grief. I consider and visually interrogate bodily experiences and
personal historic events which elicit or initiate loss. In my work I generally
use hands as seen from the first-person point of view, this I consider as my
frame of reference from which my works, and environments originate. Experiences
in playing, video games, different spaces and traces of time, and the
importance of objects which signify loss perform a key role in the artworks I
create.
