KARLIEN VAN ROOYEN & MICHAEL BECKHURTS | building mirrors, carrying souls

Opening reception: 9 May 2026 at 11:00

REQUEST CATALOGUE HERE

This collaboration between Karlien van Rooyen and Michael Beckurts unfolds as a dialogue between two bodies navigating the world through different lenses of ability. By merging Karlien’s translucent, body-shaped clay vessels with Michael’s narrative illustrations, the artists move beyond normative frameworks to articulate a shared somatic language. The works are shaped not by absence, but by points of intersection formed through friendship, intimacy, mutual support, and the act of carrying one another.

The surface of the clay becomes a site of exchange. Michael illustrates the vessels with cherished landscapes and moments of family life: gestures of primal belonging that open a conversation around nuanced barricades to access. Places one body cannot reach are translated and reimagined through the other, allowing environments to exist relationally rather than physically.

The vessels stand in for bodies: breakable and held. They speak to unseen pain and to the particular tenderness with which certain bodies must be carried through the world. Passing through the kiln’s fire, vulnerability is revealed; colour deepens, and what survives is transformed: strengthened, yet still fragile.

Michael’s decision to portray the world as he exists within it marks a shift from silence to intentional presence. The act of painting oneself becomes both necessary and radical.

When the mirror does not exist, it must be built.

Karlien’s vessels hold the weight of an invisible battle: the quiet gravity of a nature lover often beset by a spectre of mysterious pain. While she carries Michael’s physical body into exhibitions and ocean swims, he carries the world back to her through his paintings offering mental access when illness interrupts perception.

Together the works assert interdependence as a form of strength. They propose a way of being in which access is shared, absence is met with care, and presence is built: not alone, but in relationship.

Artist biographies:

Karlien Van Rooyen (b. 1991, South Africa)

Karlien van Rooyen is a Cape Town-based ceramic sculptor whose conceptual practice is deeply informed by an unconventional life shaped by science, activism, and personal transformation. Originally trained in medical science with a focus on neuroscience, she later worked as a full-time environmental activist, spending three years alongside Indigenous communities. These experiences profoundly shaped her worldview and now echo through her sculptural work.

Turning to art as a form of healing and self-expression following her departure from frontline activism, Karlien completed a degree in Contemporary Art at the University of South Australia in 2017, where she was awarded the Minter Ellison Award for Outstanding Creative Potential. In 2018, she received an International Project Grant to undertake a seven-week ceramic residency in Jingdezhen, China-the historic centre of porcelain production.

Her work, rooted in the materiality of clay, explores themes of resilience and transformation, often drawing inspiration from wild landscapes and the tension between fragility and strength. Through sculpture, she continues to navigate the complexities of the human condition and its entanglement with the natural world.

Michael Beckurts (b. 2000, South Africa)

Since graduating in 2021 from the Cape Town Creative Academy, Michael Beckurts has been a full time visual artist working in ceramic underglaze, oils, charcoal, watercolour, and digitally.

Michael’s luminous, vivid scenes are defined by rapid mark-making and considered composition. Depicting meaningful places, gatherings, and self-portraits, his work reflects his connection to people and nature. A recent conceptual shift moves his practice from observer to participant, asserting his presence within the world and marking a transition from absence to intentional self-representation.

He has had four solo exhibitions: Archives at the Test Kitchen, Woodstock (2021), Portraits of Nature, Portraits of Places at MOK Gallery, Stellenbosch (2022), Remember to Play at Openwine, Wale Street (2023), and Vivacity at AVA Gallery, Cape Town (2024). Michael participated in the Baz Art International Public Arts Festival in Cape Town in 2019 and 2023. He was a participant in the 2023 Sessions Programme for Visual Artists led by Dominique Edwards and was represented by the AVA Gallery at the RMB Latitudes Art Fair in Johannesburg (2024). Michael’s artworks have been included in multiple group exhibitions. In the words of critic Ashraf Jamal, “Beckurts’ art draws us towards what we long for most – stillness, with all its tremulous vivacity. [He] is a marvel of promise in an embittered world.”