LUCA EVANS
LUCA EVANS, CRASH, /kɹæʃ/, 2023
african rosewood, birch, kiaat, maple, sapele and walnut on pine, 31 x 49 x 2 cm
Luca Evans is a Cape Town based artist, working primarily with wood, and text. Their work sits in a playful and delicate intersection between tradition and alteration, linguistics and visual art. Sometimes they place the viewer in the position of a phonetician, a branch of linguistics which studies how humans produce and perceive sounds. ‘How do you write sound? How do you signify it? Text and sound bump into each other and spill out. Words work hard. They signify meanings and ideas and actions all at once. Sound words work hard too; it’s not easy signifying sound. Our lexicons are filled with onomatopoeia. Chomp, hiccough, beep, fizz, splash, pop, honk, crack, thud, oomph. I used to work in linguistics. We transcribed sound, rendering it legible. They made an international alphabet of sounds. k/ ræ∫ bæŋ pft. So I started wondering if maybe objects can be sounds. See a mousetrap and hear a snap. This room is filled with sounds. It’s a cacophony, but your head has to fill in the sounds.’
LUCA EVANS, VROOOOM /vɹʊm/, 2023
african rosewood, birch, kiaat, maple, sapele and walnut on pine, 21 x 28.5 x 2 cm
Luca Evans is a Cape Town based artist, working primarily with wood, and text. Their work sits in a playful and delicate intersection between tradition and alteration, linguistics and visual art. Sometimes they place the viewer in the position of a phonetician, a branch of linguistics which studies how humans produce and perceive sounds. ‘How do you write sound? How do you signify it? Text and sound bump into each other and spill out. Words work hard. They signify meanings and ideas and actions all at once. Sound words work hard too; it’s not easy signifying sound. Our lexicons are filled with onomatopoeia. Chomp, hiccough, beep, fizz, splash, pop, honk, crack, thud, oomph. I used to work in linguistics. We transcribed sound, rendering it legible. They made an international alphabet of sounds. k/ ræ∫ bæŋ pft. So I started wondering if maybe objects can be sounds. See a mousetrap and hear a snap. This room is filled with sounds. It’s a cacophony, but your head has to fill in the sounds.’
Specialists in contemporary art from South Africa. Established in 1913. South African artists are part of the global conversation. We seek to make their voices heard.