The Piano

Abstract

The Piano (2024) entailed the production of 19 new works for a solo exhibition at IS Gallery in Stellenbosch. For this exhibition I also included two works – Song of the philosopher 1 and 2 – from my 2023 Song of the philosopher exhibition at Rust-en-Vrede Gallery in Durbanville, since in that series I already commenced my semiotic investigation into the relationship of word to image. These works contain sound wave imagery and were thus appropriate for the The Piano exhibition. The latter project also includes an online exhibition catalogue and the works remain permanently available for viewing at www.elfriededreyer.com/the-piano. In these works I approach my piano as a heterotopian object in the Foucauldian sense of functioning as a site of layered narrative, memory, and transformation. As a heterotopian object it exists in a layered conceptual space of blurring boundaries between past and present, personal and collective. It is simultaneously a material instrument and an emotional vessel, a site of disciplined practice and imaginative escape, a survivor of destruction and a symbol of continuity. I consider the piano as a vessel for memory and loss, resonating with the aftermath of the 2017 Knysna Great Fire in which I lost everything except my piano. I aimed to revive and recollect memories of childhood rituals of disciplined repetition—practicing scales, arpeggios, and other technical exercises. These acts of mechanical rigour have been a source for polyphonic imagery and narrative, where obsessive repetition, production, and remembrance accumulate into a layered sonic and conceptual landscape. My methodology of layering of materials, images and digital elements echoes the cumulative nature of memory and experience.