KNOKKE.- Maruani Mercier is presenting Darkening Dusk, the inaugural solo exhibition of South African artist Kate Gottgens, at their Knokke gallery. Recognized for her haunting, dreamlike compositions, Gottgens crafts works that exist in a state of liminality—never fixed, always in flux, and at times elusive. Just as the fading light of dusk blurs the boundaries of day and night, her paintings evoke a sense of transition, where familiarity dissolves into something more fluid, open-ended, and mysterious.
Gottgens builds her work from a variety of sourced imagery— anonymous snapshots found at flea markets, family vacation photos, or fragments retrieved from the vast digital archive of the internet. Stripped of their original contexts, these images become the raw material for a process of reconstruction and transformation. This gives rise to landscapes that feel both intimate and unplaceable, imbued with an unsettling, cinematic tension.
In this body of work, nature serves as both subject and entry point. The figures in her paintings appear to enter nature as much as nature enters them, dissolving the boundaries between body and environment. Water emerges as a recurring motif, not as a passive element but as a charged, transitional space. Pools reflect unnatural hues—electric blues and eerie greens—that disrupt the natural setting, generating a subtle yet palpable tension.
Through this interplay, Gottgens explores the seductive yet deceptive nature of nostalgia. The pull of nostalgia can be dangerously alluring, smoothing over complexities and transforming history into a sentimentalized illusion. This, what she refers to as the “chocolate-box cliché”, is subtly punctured in her work, as she exposes the underbelly of these idealized memories of the past.
This ambivalence also permeates her depiction of leisure and privilege. Middle-class domestic scenes, such as backyard pools, summer evenings, and figures at play, evoke a world of comfort and ease, yet there is a lingering unease beneath the surface. Through dark satire, Gottgens critiques excess and recklessness, acknowledging the tensions that seep into these seemingly idyllic settings.
A feminist undercurrent runs through the works in Darkening Dusk, with Gottgens increasingly centering enigmatic female figures. Works like Summoned by the Tides depict women in quiet contemplation by the water, almost blending into the landscape. In contrast, a male figure takes center stage, his back turned to the tide, as though being called by something unseen. There’s a quiet pull, a moment of hesitation, as if caught between staying and surrendering to the call of the water.
However, as the series progresses, the female figures grow more commanding, with works such as Dusk and Venus revealing powerful, almost mythic representations of femininity. In Dusk and Venus, the figure materializes as if being (re)born from the pool, signaling a significant shift in Gottgens’ portrayal of feminine strength and autonomy. Envissioned as contemporary Birth of Venus, the work evokes an ethereal strength and a sense of emergence— almost embryonic in nature. Yet, amidst this symbolism, Gottgens deliberately grounds the scene in the everyday. The presence of a pool noodle and floaty anchors the work in the mundane, offering a reminder of the contemporary and the ordinary within the mystical.
Her paintings do not offer clear narratives but instead invite viewers to respond instinctively, as if recalling a dream just beyond their reach. Suspended between the past and present, beauty and disquiet, her work lingers in the spaces where certainty fades and something more enigmatic takes hold.
Darkening Dusk invites viewers to enter a world where familiar images shift and dissolve, where beauty is tempered with tension, and where the boundaries between reality and memory, nature and self, are never fully defined.
Kate Gottgens’ paintings blur light and shadow, creating liminal spaces between memory and dream. Using fragments from found photos and personal snapshots, she strips them of context to form a unique visual language.Her works balance beauty with unease, using water as a motif that shimmers and distorts. The stillness evokes nostalgia, both tender and unsettling, while exploring how memories can be deceptive and sentimentalized. Gottgens critiques the allure of nostalgia, revealing the darker side of idealized pasts. Born in Durban, South Africa, in 1965, Gottgens studied at the Michaelis School of Fine Art. Her works are held in notable collections, including the Pérez Collection and the Cassatt Foundation.
