This month, Brett Charles Seiler has caught the Artsy team’s attention. The Zimbabwean artist is on “Artists on Our Radar,” a monthly Artsy series that highlights five artists from all over the world. The artists on this list are selected for making an impact in the previous month through new gallery representation, exhibitions, auctions, art fairs, or fresh works on Artsy.
Image courtesy of Artsy
Brett Charles Seiler (b. 1994) lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. He is known for his paintings which bear semblance to an interior world wavering between desire and anxiety. In his work, he explores the male body, gender, domestic space, poetry, queer history, biblical symbolism, love and alienation, and the possibilities of painting as a medium. Focusing on how human rights violation is a norm in his birth country, his work highlights the struggle for equal sexual orientation in education, media, and institutions.
Seiler says, “My work is a deep longing for understanding. It is from the point of view of something that I’ve missed, something that I cannot go back to. It’s a process of research.”
Image courtesy of Artsy
About Seiler’s work, Isobelle Boltt, lead partnerships at Artsy writes:
“Experiences of queerness and masculinity—sometimes isolating, sometimes intimate—are at the heart of Seiler’s work. In Living Room and Living with Myself (both 2023), figures appear unaware of the onlooker’s gaze. Captured in the nude amid houseplants and furnishings, they seem at home in their surroundings. But a sense of unease lingers: In Living Room, one figure turns his back on the other, while the title of Living with Myself suggests feelings of shame. Other works are simple portraits, titled as such (Portrait 33 or Portrait 34, both 2023). Are their subjects gazing back at the viewer with intensity, or staring into the distance, trapped in their worlds?”
Recently, Seiler had solo shows at M+B in Los Angeles and Galerie Eigen + Art in Berlin. In addition to his solo exhibitions, Seiler has participated in several group exhibitions and fairs, such as the Cologne Art Fair with Galerie Eigen + Art in 2021 and a performance piece with Luvuyo Nyawose titled “Reading Homophobia” (2017) at the A4 Arts Foundation in Cape Town, which was organized by Kemang Wa Lehulere and Zipho Dayile. He has been featured in group shows in Cape Town and elsewhere.
