Alongside the quiet 'leiwater' channels, carved into one of Cape Town's oldest streets to carry our most precious resource: water, from one place to the next, back in the 17 & 1800's, scary polony is set to stream her love for fine art and all forms of creative expression, in much the same way.
From a heritage Bree street building, home to culinary master of the arts of good taste, pure passion and magnificent visuality: Chef Liam Tomlin, we begin our gentle rain of creative, collaborative irrigation.
Liam Tomlin has been making waves in the world of gastronomy since 1997. Born in Dublin, Ireland, where his career as a chef began at the age of 14, Tomlin is to date the recipient of numerous awards, prestigious accolades and global recognition.
We are beyond thrilled to be docking our art assets here in collaboration with the astounding talents of our illustrious host and the culinary brain behind Chefs Warehouse.
Chefs Warehouse nurtures the journey of up and coming chefs while providing fertile ground for exploration, growth and innovation in the most gobsmackingly beautiful locations such as Beau Constantia, The Red Room at the Mount Nelson Hotel, Tintswalo Atlantic, Thali Kloof street and Chefs Warehouse Maison in Franschhoek.
The Old Bailey on Bree Street is a plush, rooftop whisky bar gently perched above Chefs Warehouse at The Bailey on Bree Street on the ground floor and the Brasserie at The Bailey on the middle level. The Bailey is a place to relax and to lounge. It is here amongst the lush velvet textures of mustard, teal and dark grey, transporting lighting, a glass walled fireplace, a curved bar with over 365 whisky types to indulge in, a grand piano and a wall of lockable, rentable glass cased whisky cabinets that you will find our latest curated collection of contemporary art, sculpture and ceramics and if you're lucky, one of our experiential art happenings.
Under the auspices of an incredible service team led by the ultra sophisticated and magnificent Rachel Nicholson, who has been gently guiding the Chefs Warehouse brand since it's inception, you will be held in a beautiful space with beautiful things and your mind-body-spirit nourished with unusual and delectable delights.
Much like Chefs Warehouse, scary polony will be nurturing and supporting the talents of many artists and various artistic mediums in our new Cape Town city home. Our mission is to foster creative experimentation, the growth of unusual artistic mediums paired with the more traditional ones, support for an acquired and growing culture of fine art and an appreciation for performance art, happenings, dance and music.
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Summer Salon
Art; from the decorative to the political...a cornucopia of Cape personalities, the beauty of people, places and pleasures..."Come join the explosion of colour, diversity and perspectives in a vibrant and vivacious blend of punchy art and heady whiskies." - curator Warren Scheuer
scary polony, in association with Chefs Warehouse at the Bailey, is proud to present Cape Town, through the eyes of some of its most esteemed artists, from Prof Larry Scully and the Hanover street District Six series, Cecil Skotnes landscapes, Kevin Atkinson graphics, to Peter Clarke and Selwyn Pekeur's 'local and lekker' the music of Manenberg and the majesty of mountains and memories, scary polony serves our Summer Salon, an evolving and revolving selection of local and international masters, muses and mark makers. -
Summer Salon
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Larry Scully (SA 1922 - 2002)
Colour Serigraphs "Painting is for me visual music, and visual thinking. My inspiration comes from the colours, textures, forms and light of Africa..." - Larry Scully
Larry Scully was a gentle giant on the South African Art scene. At 6 ft 8 inches tall he towered above his fellows, not only in his contribution as an artist and activist, but also in his massive contribution to art education in the country. He was the first South African artist to receive a Master of Fine Arts degree for his dissertation on the Khoi-San influence on the work of Walter Battiss. He taught art at numerous institutions throughout his life; the Polly Street Art centre in JHB which was set up as one of the first art schools on the continent to encourage African artists, Pretoria Boys High where he followed in the footsteps of his mentor, Walter Battiss, he was head of Fine Arts at the Johannesburg College of Education and later became Professor of Fine Arts and Art History at the University of Stellenbosch. He was also a trustee of the National Gallery.
In the 1970's Scully refused to limit the Johannesburg Biennale to whites only as instructed by the South African government. He shut down the biennale in a highly principled action that challenged the racial discrimination being imposed by the Apartheid government on the South African arts community.
In 1973 Scully was commissioned by the Star Newspaper to paint "The Madonna and Child of Soweto" to raise money for an education fund for black South Africans. The painting was bought by Harry Oppenheimer and donated to the Regina Mundi Church in Soweto which was the site of much anti-apartheid activity from the 70's until the 1990's. Funerals of activists were held in the Church and organizations used the church for meetings. During the student uprising of 1976 students fled to Regina Mundi after police shot at them. The painting was said to have had a prophetic quality denoting the eventual victory of the struggle movement. The image of the Black Madonna also entered popular culture as an anti-apartheid slogan with thousands of t-shirts being printed and sold across South Africa during the 1970's.
Journalist Mpho Lukoto reflecting on democracy in South Africa said this of the painting:
"Perhaps one of the most poignant reminders of the past is the Black Madonna and Child of Soweto, which was painted by Laurence Scully...It struck me that in the midst of the painful memories, the painting is a symbol of the hope that, like the church itself, was in the heart of the people. I like to believe that it was that hope, that makes it possible for us to celebrate 10 years of democracy." The Star Newspaper, 2004
Scully continued to document the changing landscape of Apartheid South Africa, taking numerous photographs of District Six as it was demolished.
District Six was a colourful, inter-racial hub adjacent to the Cape Town city centre whose occupants were displaced, evicted, forcibly removed and whose homes were effectively bulldozed during the 1970's by the Apartheid regime. Our collection of Scully serigraphs document this photographic journey of District Six in lush, bold imagery and metallic surface.
Scully created images of what he called in his own words "the percussive syncopation of the city" for his paintings, murals, silkscreens and photography. Syncopation is a musical term for a note shifting to a subdivision of the beat, rather than the whole beat; a temporary displacement typically caused by stressing the weaker beat.
Our rare, limited edition colour silkscreens titled: 'A Cape Portfolio: A Tribute to the People of District Six' demonstrate Scully's obsession with syncopation in his depictions of actual displacement, his highly skilled eye for photography - a skill so advanced it was said to leave audiences of his photographic montage slide shows at the Baxter Theatre, in tears, as well as his lush, evocative use of colour as an emotional language.
The colour palette of these prints is striking in their metallic golden lustre, iridescent splashes of luminous fuchsia and blazing electric blue, all typical of Scully's "taut intensity about his use of colour" (Berman, Esmé).
Typical of Scully was his practise of exaggerating the contrast between light and dark elements in his composition to lend decorative drama to his descriptive presentations together with his vision of form in abstract terms - as interacting shapes and patterns, all of which show up in these bold, saturated silkscreens printed in 1976, the year of the Soweto uprising and a major political landmark in the timeline of the anti-apartheid struggle. -
John Piper and the Psyche-delicates
Featuring artists: John Piper, Helmut Starcke, Cecily Sash, Eduardo Paolozzi, Billy Molokeng, Bronwen Findlay, Lyndi Sales, Andrew Verster, Vladimir Tretchikoff, Matthew Hindley and Derick Nxumalo. -
Time to fill the world with sunshine... so bounce into Spring with us.
A retro psychedelic inspired international exhibition: 'John piper and the Psyche- delicates', filled with bright colour, flower power, busy pattern and emotive iconography."Our new exhibition is an exit of Winter days and nights to a shower of Spring colours, high spirits ... a leisurely butterfly life." - curator, Warren Scheuer
With British artist John Piper as the inspiration for the show, we decided to pair local and international artists, many from the iconic 1960's & 70's, with contemporary up and comers, very much like the music bands and festivals of the times... and totally indicative of the inspiration of spring.
Accompanied by our events, introducing the cosmic pianist and partnered by a choreographed light show, the exhibition is about the emotive, the nostalgic and yet positivity to the future.
And the title, you guessed it, is a play on the bands of the yesteryear, with band names of the forefront act and their supporting artist... welcome to our world of butterflies, luminous, the trippy and LOVE...all with a touch of the delicate and a bit of class!
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John Piper
John Piper was a revolutionary British artist in that he converted ordinary landscapes and architectural features such as gate posts, historical buildings, bridges and cemetries into ecstatic, almost psychedelic renditions of kaleidoscopic colours and evocative fluid lines. His lush style of intricate print-making and unique off-beat palette were also in part influenced by the vivid nature of light through stained glass of which he was a master craftsman.
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Cecily Sash (SA 1925 - 2019)
Cecily Sash was a founding member and the only woman in the influential Amadlozi Group, along with Cecil Skotnes, Eduardo Villa, Sydney Kumalo and Giuseppe Cattaneo. -
Helmut Starcke (SA 1935 - 2017)
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Matthew Hindley (SA b. 1974)
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Vladimir Tretchikoff (SA 1913 - 2006)
The Ten Commandments, Colour Lithographs, (full series of 10) -
'Foliate Head', John Piper
'Green Man'. Never has he been more relevant. His appearance at a time of pending ecological suicide bares a grisly reminder of a faraway time buried deep in our ancestral memory, when we were connected to nature and submissive to her ways. A pagan symbol, half-man, half-plant he appears on medieval buildings from the 11th -19th centuries as a vegetative gargoyle with twisted branches and leaves for hair. He peers, leers, grins and observes.'Green Man' was coined by Lady Raglan in her writings for the Journal of British Folklore. (A short, singular piece written back in the 1880's that gained far more publicity than her husband - Baron Raglan's many writings at the time.) One of the most important British artists of the 20th century - John Piper, was under the spell of 'Green Man' for many moons.Dubbed 'Foliate Head' or leafy / flower head it's one of the most distinctive motifs of his work and pops up in his paintings, prints, textiles and ceramics. Heavily influenced by the Romantic and Visionary tradition of British artists Samuel Palmer and William Blake.John Piper is considered to be a revolutionary artist in that he converted ordinary landscapes, historical buildings and architectural features such as gargoyles, gate posts and bridges into ecstatic, almost psychedelic renditions of kaleidoscopic colours and evocative, fluid lines.'Foliate Head' emerges from his obsession with medieval ecclesiastical architecture and comes to life when the seeds began germinating for the counter culture movement of the 1960's and 70's. This particular work with it's flag-like striped background heralds a reminder of the necessity for a balance in the force, the subtle dominance of the vegetative kingdom and it's role as symbiotic ruler of the Earth. Like Green Man's reminder of the cycle of life, death and re-birth, never has it been a more weighty emblem than right now. -
'Rare', our first conceptual collaboration with The Bailey, Chefs Warehouse & our inaugural exhibition 'Well Done'.
A taste of what will be, giving Cape Town the in-vogue bar, where cool meets culture, offering sophisticated art and cocktail pairings to match the ethos of our host, Chefs Warehouse. -
Contemporary South African Ceramics
Curated ceramics for 'Well Done', housed in beautifully lit whisky cabinets at The Bailey on Bree. -
Deborah BellMagdel fragment, 2008Bronze on granite base34 cm high, 36 cm with granite baseEdition 3 of 9
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Sydney KumaloReclining Nude II, 1965Bronzeheight 7 cm, width 34 cmEdition of 10
