Mark Rautenbach is a Cape Town artist who has also worked as Mark Splendid, Mark Maria and Splendid Miriam. He works in a variety of media, including material which is considered waste matter, as well as textiles and paper. Rautenbach’s practice is often process-based, and draws on traditional craft techniques.

For Rautenbach, matter is the means he uses to express memory and meaning. He looks at the unseen forces and tensions which are inside and in between visible material things. The textural languages he uses guide his creative procedures by inviting consideration of their inherent potential and associations. Through ritualistic repetition – drawing on the arcane and everyday, the collective and personal – Rautenbach uses his meditative works to embody psychological and cultural patterns, giving form to invisible spaces. Physical conglomerations – whether of thread, steel safety pins or glass – symbolise emotional connections.

By renegotiating found objects and materials from shops, recycle bins, gifts and disassembled artworks, Rautenbach manifests forms which exhibit his alchemical journey: his commitment to be present with all things even when they are uncomfortable. To delve into, uncover, bind and cocoon his being – to transform into something beyond expectations.

Rautenbach lectured Design for a number of years at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), and education recurs as a theme in his work, along with identities born out of narratives – represented through yarn. Rautenbach has exhibited at the Iziko South African National Gallery, Everard Read, Open 24 Hrs, Spier, David Krut Projects and Ebony/Curated, among others.

EDUCATION

1983-7 BAFA, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg

SOLO EXHIBITIONS & PERFORMANCES

2022

Pigments of the Alchemist’s Imagination and the Non-Dual, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Ariadne’s Thread, Cubicle Series, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2021

WORLD WORLDING, OPEN 24 Hrs, in partnership with Ebony/Curated, Cape Town, South Africa

2020

[U]Ntelling [S]Tories, Distancio/Tranås, Distancio, Sweden

2019

Underpinnings, Ebony/Curated, Franschhoek, South Africa

2018

How Long Can I Hold Your Attention For?/ How Much Presence Can I Give You?, performance, Jewellery as a Social Object, Contemporary Jewellery Forum, Seminar and Exhibition, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

Noonoo Index, FNB Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa

2017

Dawning New Narratives, performance, Rhodes Memorial, Cape Town, South Africa

Mothertongue 1, performance, Art Thursdays, Reverie Social Table, Observatory, Cape Town, South Africa 

Fatherland, performance, Borderlands, Cape Point, Cape Town, South Africa

Ouma se Kind, performance, Cape Town, South Africa

2015

[Terror]Tory, performance, The Dark Precursor: International Conference on Deleuze and Artistic Research, Orpheus Institute, Ghent, Belgium; TEDx 2015, City Hall, Cape Town; Deleuze and Guattari and Africa Conference, University of Cape Town, Cape Town

2014

The Educator’s New Clothes, Room, Johannesburg (exhibition); Cape Town & surrounds, Johannesburg, South Africa (performance

2006

Introducing Splendid, Amoeba Light & Living, Johannesburg, South Africa

2000

Womb, solo exhibition, I Cafe, Observatory, Cape Town 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS/COMMISSIONS

2024  

Winter Collection, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

2024

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Southern Light, Everard Read, London, UK

2023

What I Feel When I Think About the Cosmos, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

The Other’s Warmth, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Winter, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2022

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Things I’d Like to Remember, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2021

Phantasmagoria, group exhibition, RK Contemporary, Riebeek Kasteel, South Africa

Oasis, group exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Plane, Deepest Darkest, Cape Town, South Africa

Persistence of Vision, Knysna Fine Art, Knysna, South Africa

In Conversation, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

These Walls Have Eyes, Haas, Cape Town, South Africa

The Troubled Archive, Ellis House Art Studios, Johannesburg, South Africa

In Conversation with Colour Symphony, Rupert Museum, Jan Rupert Art Centre, Graaff-Reinet, South Africa

2020

Hard, But Soft, group exhibition, Gallery at Glen Carlou, Klapmuts, Cape Town, South Africa

2019

A Splendid Summer Send-Off;  40 Years 40 Plus Artists, Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town, South Africa

Textile, curated by Amy Pike for Dyman Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa

Conversations in Texture, curated by Khumo Sebambo, Berman Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa

Small Room, curated by Sarah Grace, Priest, Johannesburg, South Africa

2018

FORWARD?FORWARD!FORWARD…, University of Stellenbosch Museum, Stellenbosch, South Africa 

Touchwood, 203 Percy Osborn, Durban, South Africa

KZNSA Gallery, Park Gallery, Durban, South Africa

Candice Berman, Johannesburg, South Africa

2017

A Romulus Rebus, curated by Priest, Fried Contemporary, Pretoria, South Africa

FNB Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa

Ebony/Curated, Franschhoek, South Africa

Dream Rift, Eclectica, Cape Town, South Africa

Proud, The Studio Door, San Diego, USA

Verging Thresholds, Eclectica, Cape Town, South Africa

Most Beautiful Object, nominee, Design Indaba, Cape Town, South Africa

The Sky Over Berlin, installation, 50th anniversary of the Krugerrand, South African Mint and Rand Refinery, World Money Fair, Berlin, Germany

2016

Woman’s Work, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

What's The Matter? Ebony/Curated, Cape Town, South Africa

District Six Museum Print Exchange: District Six Museum, Cape Town, South Africa

Muse Montage, Eclectica, Cape Town, South Africa

Eduplation, performance, group exhibition, David Krut Projects, Johannesburg, South Africa

Optical Diversion, Eclectica, Cape Town, South Africa

Commission for Shortmarket Street Club, Cape Town, South Africa

Unheimlich, performance & group exhibition, Woordfees, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

2015

Fetish, performance and group exhibition, Priest, Johannesburg, South Africa

Vuleka, competition, 3rd and highly commended prize, ART B, Bellville, South Africa

Uima Mask Competition, Finalist, University of Iowa Museum Of Art, Iowa, USA

Fetish, Arttec - Epsac Community Art Centre, Port Elizabeth and Makhanda, South Africa

Décor Z, Spier, Stellenbosch, South Africa

2012

Southern Ink Exposure 3, International tattoo convention, Cape Town

2011

Open Books, Brundyn & Gonsalves, Cape Town, South Africa

Pinhole Photography, Haas, Bokaap, Cape Town, South Africa

2010

Southern Ink Exposure 2, International tattoo convention, CTICC, Cape Town, South Africa

Gill Alderman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

These Four Walls, Observatory, Cape Town, South Africa

2009

Southern Ink Exposure 1, international tattoo convention, co-curator and exhibitor, CTICC, Cape Town, South Africa

Gill Alderman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2008

Gill Alderman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2007

World Tribe, collaboration with Brandon Amronski, Alison Café, Leon, Mexico

Gill Alderman Gallery, Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa

Walker Bay Gallery, Hermanus, South Africa

2003

Human Genome Project, competition finalist, Natural History Museum, Cape Town

2002

MARK MRS LOVE, collaboration with Mrs Love, Obs Cafe, Cape Town

2000

Sex & Culture, Gauloise Warehouse, Cape Town.

COLLECTIONS

Iziko South African National Gallery

Rand Refinery Collection

Rupert Museum

Kilbourn Collection

Investec Collection

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

2021

Grace of Abstraction, Ashraf Jamal, ART THROB, 8 February 2021 

2018

Noonoo Index Catalogue, Lunetta Bartz, MAKER, ISBN 978-0-620-79668-2

2017

Contemporary Performance Almanac 2017 (Volume 4), Edited by Caden Manson and Daniel   Nelson, ISBN-13: 978-1546818854

2015

THE DARK PRECURSOR, International Conference on Deleuze and Artistic Research, edited by  PAULO DE ASSIS and PAOLO GIUDICI, ISBN 978 94 9038 904 8

2014

KNOTWE: ALL THINGS FIBER, http://www.knotwe.com/mark-rautenbach/

ART SOUTH AFRICA, volume 12, issue 4, June 2014

VISI, February/March 2014, volume 70

RESIDENCIES & WORKSHOPS

2022

MAGNITUDE; Björkö Konstod; Björkö, Sweden

2020

DISTANCIO, social sculpture residency, Tranås, Sweden

2018

Noonoo Catalogue Index, Johannesburg, South Africa

2017

Centre for Artistic Activism, New York, USA

SWEAT and ASIJIKI, Johannesburg, South Africa

Body Scenography, workshop with Steven Cohen, ICA, UCT, Cape Town, South Africa