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PLANETPAUL
by KÓAN JEFF BAYSA

September / October Issue 2004

PlanetPaul draws Manhattan into its gravitational field when Paul du Toit, a rangy, affable South African artist who could be a movie stand-in for Ed Harris playing Jackson Pollock (one of the artist's heroes), beautifully installs his New York debut exhibition in the former Jack Tilton Gallery at 49 Greene Street in SoHo. Passers-by are drawn into the open space by the attractive "PlanetPaul" signage at the entrance, playful painted metal sculpture in the window, and winsome, bold paintings beyond. Observe the gallery go-ers who view his art, and you'll inevitably see smiles, the near-universal response to his work. The inhabitants of PlanetPaul are created by this self-taught artist who quips "Because I live in my head most of the time, I created this space or planet to which I can return and fill with images." In Paris, a notable art historian commented on the artist's works, that, "It is all in the line." Of previous paintings, a noted South African art writer stated, "If you really look at them, you see torture, obsession and repression . . . perhaps du Toit's work is more of a reflection of reality than most people imagine." When asked recently about the "dark side" of the works in this exhibition, the artist remarked that most of these images are "happy and uplifting" except possibly for the bronze-from-plasticine sculpture with black patina, "Still Standing," first formed with strips of canvas resembling bandages over an armature.

Taking an unconventional orbit that has drawn considerable attention, PlanetPaul is the brainchild of 38-year-old Paul du Toit, who as a teenager was confined to a wheelchair for approximately three years with symptoms of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. With an indomitable spirit that typifies how he deals with life's challenges, du Toit leapfrogged out of obscurity in Capetown with a brilliant strategy that was born of his combined backgrounds as a computer programmer, savvy-ness in utilizing the internet as a marketing tool, management skills of his very capable spouse Lorette, and the soul of a self-assured artist destined to create joyful work to share with the rest of the planet. Producing more than a hundred works per year, the artist participated in the notable traveling exhibition, "70 over 2000 on the Road to Meikle Seggie," the Firenze Biennale Dell'Arte Contemporanea 2001, was shortlisted for the South Africa DaimlerChrysler Sculpture 2002 Award, and also represented South Africa at the Toronto International Art Fair in 2002. His paintings and sculptures have been placed in major corporate and private collections and two artworks were successfully auctioned at Sotheby's, but PlanetPaul's trajectory has not been entirely smooth. Both he and his work have been lambasted by local critics and fellow artists. On the other hand, a popular South African website listed him as one of the most collectible South African artists along with Willie Bester, Norman Catherine, and William Kentridge. Using basic, primary color palettes with bold shapes and lines, Paul du Toit's paintings show a guileless spontaneous, and accessible visual vocabulary, a trait that his works share with certain members of the remarkable COBRA group.

The artist uses his paintings as blueprints for future sculptures. On a subliminal level, strong-featured paintings like "Face to Hide In" and "Primary Level" may well have appeal on the basis of image association and pattern recognition, in the way that some psychological testing deploys nurturing forms with rudimentary facial and body characteristics, in addition to ingrained visual cues from basic shapes that are encoded during child development. From a critical viewpoint, the current exhibition is a bit uneven, for several of the smaller paintings incorporating pieces of canvas from prior works and some of the dhow-inspired metal sculptures appear unresolved. However these impressions are tempered by alluring works like "Major Player," a large painting with an oversized green Sisyphusianly-balanced indeterminately-expressioned head and the delightful sculpture series typified by the colorfully painted work "Walk Unafraid" with its mismatched facial features and limbs devoid of symmetry; the torso sports a brilliantly-conceived mitochondria-like emblem.

PlanetPaul's close encounter with the Manhattan art world is an auspicious and solid first landing.

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