surf art 57

Wavescapes Surf Film Festival and Surf Art Exhibition
Prominent artists, including Beezy Bailey, Brett Murray, Sanell Aggenbach, Richard Scott
and Cameron Platter, have decorated vintage replica surfboards for a unique auction to
raise funds for the NSRI and False Bay Shark Spotters.





Their ‘canvas’ has been one of 12 identical surfboards – exact replicas of the board
ridden in 1977 at Pipeline, Hawaii, by Shaun Tomson, South Africa’s first world surfing
champion. The surfboards, with a single wooden fin, were made by shaper Spider
Murphy in Durban to the same specification as the original and delivered to top sculptors,
illustrators, cartoonists and painters, also including Konradski from Bitterkomix, Lizza
Littlewort, Richard Hart, Andy Mason, Rowan Thompson and Brahm Van Zyl.





The surf art exhibition will be hosted by the second annual Wavescapes Surf Film
Festival presented by FNB at the VEO Gallery and Art Warehouse, Jarvis Street, Cape
Town, between December 8 and 18. The auction forms part of a wider exhibition of surf
art by artists from along the South African coast, including cartoons by Zapiro that have a
surfing theme.





Steve Pike, aka ‘Spike’ from Wavescape.co.za, the organiser of the film festival and art
exhibition, says “The commission was for the artists to open up and push the envelope of
their artistic license, to use the boards as their canvas, their subject, their malleable
material. The brief was open-ended. They're free to do with the board what they want,
whether to mangle it into bits, stab it with fondue forks or mould them into a Kylie
Mynogue bust. It promises to be a wonderful example of artistic expression in its purest
form!”





The surf film festival starts on Friday December 9 with a giant screening beneath the
stars that turns Fourth Beach, Clifton, into a huge open-air cinema.



Supported by GQ, the Cape Times and Cape Town Routes Unlimited, the film festival
was launched in Cape Town last year, and has been expanded to include a coastal
roadshow and the surf art exhibition.





For those in need of some surfing soul this summer the film festival roadshow pulls into
Hermanus, Victoria Bay, Knysna and Plettenberg Bay between 27 December and 7
January 2006. A classic 1967 split-screen Kombi covered in a giant surf design will bring
the films to holidaymakers with outdoor shows planned for Hermanus right on the beach
at Vic Bay.





Spike says that the jaw-dropping slow motion opening sequence of Mike Parsons
weaving down a 60’ Jaws juggernaut is a ‘must-see’ at the opening show on Clifton
beach when a three-storey inflatable screen will be erected and the big wave
documentary Billabong Odyssey projected onto it.





The film festival will feature a range of local and overseas movies such as Sprout,
Second Thoughts, Blackwater, Campaign 2, A Brokedown Melody, and
Dungeonkeepers. Performances are scheduled at the Labia Cinema and the Brass Bell
in Kalk Bay.





Dungeonkeepers is a South African retrospective covering six years of the Red Bull Big
Wave Africa event at Dungeons off Hout Bay. Several films in the lineup feature women
surfing as a theme, such as AKA Girl Surfer, with an all-women cast.





Brett Erasmus, Head of Marketing, Consumer Segments, at FNB, says: “Following the
resounding success of last year’s festival, FNB has again decided to support this festival.
Surfing is a celebration of what South Africans hold dear – sun, sea and the beauty of the
great outdoors.”





Newly appointed editor of Zigzag surfing magazine, Will Bendix, says that surf films are
the ‘fix’ that keep surfers going when the surf is flat, whether they cover the professionals
ripping the waves in surfing’s version of ‘block-buster Hollywood action flicks’ or are
‘cruisy, more soulful stuff’ that portray a different perspective of what riding waves is all
about.





Check out www.wavescapes.co.za
Temporary%20Internet%20Files\OLK83\www.wavescapes.co.za> or call the info line on
072 424-6965 for schedule and booking details.





For information on the giant screen, visit www.justpushplay.co.za or call 084 622 2400<
p>



/Ends





NB High resolution images of art surfboards available on request from Spike




Issued on behalf of:




Steve Pike


Wavescape.co.za


Tel: 082 449-2338


Email: spike@wavescape.co.za