The Weight of Water

April 17, 2026 - April 19, 2026

Stokvel Gallery, 27 boxes, Melville, Johannesburg

A duo exhibition of printmaking works by Emma Willemse and photographs by Rudolph Willemse, curated by Mandy Conidaris.

Artist statement

Emma Willemse

The Weight of Water

It was during the great refugee crisis, starting in 2015, during which time images and footage on news channels were inundated with capsizing boats - detailing the plight of people who have lost their homes - that I became interested in the motif of the boat as a metaphor for the displacement experience. This global disaster coincided with my continuing investigation of the phenomenon of displacement and the effects of this experience on the psyche of the displaced. My investigation stems from my own experience of the loss of several homes in the 1990’s.

This exhibition brings together printmaking works in a range of techniques in which I mainly use images of fragmented boats as well as suggestions of underwater scenes (such as in A Fragile Memory I and II). In Jungian psychology, water is a symbol of the unconscious – the deep, dark side of the personality. A boat travelling over water is a means of displacement, alluding to a safe container transporting the psyche over the treacherous waters of the unknown. However, the boats that I am creating in my art practice are all rendered impotent through their brokenness, implying the woundedness of the psyche of the displaced.

When I think of the title of this exhibition, The Weight of Water, I am reminded of the wonderful video by Bill Viola, The Messenger (1996), in which a man repetitively surfaces from the depths of a pool of water, takes a deep breath, and is pulled down into the void of water again. It is this attribute - the ‘heaviness’ of water - that pulls boats down into the depths of oceans. The boats in my works show the aftermath of this experience.

Water can also be a symbol of renewal, cleansing and transformation. In works like Suspended time and Suspended boat II, water is suggested as an uplifting force, pulling the boats up into a realm of spiritual rebirth.  In these instances, how can we describe the weight of water? Could it be the same weight as a departing soul?