The relationship between art and business is more important than ever.
Though the spotlight may have been on the hard-hitting public lecture by Volkswagen SA’s Martine Biene at Nelson Mandela University’s Business School this week, it was also a chance to showcase the work of a talented young artist.
NMU master’s fine art graduate Grettel Osorio Hernandez appreciated the chance to exhibit to an elite audience of potential patrons of the arts.
“I was so excited about the exposure for my work. These days it is so easy to market and sell your work online, but I humbly suspect that the vast majority of fine artists are not inclined in that way,” Osorio said after the business lecture on Tuesday.
“Apart from adding my first solo exhibition to my CV, which is a big deal, I met incredible people.”
Her golden-hued canvases are on show at the faculty of business and economic sciences’ flagship building in Second Avenue, Summerstrand, until Monday.
After matriculating at Queenstown Girls High School in Komani, Osorio enrolled for a BA visual art at NMU, passing cum laude in 2018.
For her MA, Osorio merged digital video projection with her paintings, and sourced motifs that include abstract landscapes glimpsed fleetingly from a moving vehicle.
She explores the idea of the liminal — or transitional — and has personal experience of this both physically and psychologically.
She is the daughter of Cuban immigrants.
She hopes that the viewer will be drawn to take a closer look at the details of her art.
“Reflecting on the themes of Biene’s talk, such as movement and mobility, I realised my work was fitting because it contributed a visual narrative rooted in my lived experience of seeing landscapes through the position of a moving car,” she said.
“Ironically, my family has always owned Volkswagens, so it was quite a full-circle moment for me.”
The public lecture by new VWSA chair and MD Biene drew a large contingent of Nelson Mandela Bay business leaders.
“The exposure is so important, though I was too shy to approach some big names there, doors have been opened,” Osorio said.
“But, most importantly, it has helped me to move on from seeing myself as a student and stepping into being an established artist in SA.”
And this is precisely what the business and economic sciences faculty aimed to achieve with the carefully timed exhibition.
Youth entrepreneurship and graduate employability were high on the university’s agenda, faculty dean Prof Hendrik Lloyd said.
“You can be a brilliant artist, but you must also understand the world of business to take your discipline and passion to the next level,” he said.
“Through these engagements we hope to expose young and emerging artists to new experiences, and help them transcend the boundary between the worlds of the humanities and business.”
Lloyd said collaborations like this could also lead to further links in the future.
“The business school is the outward-facing conduit of the business and economic sciences faculty, through which we engage with our business stakeholders,” he said.
“We had people from the big commercial banks, decisionmakers, leaders and CEOs of large manufacturing concerns.
“These are the type of people who will curate local art for their businesses — and that is where we see the business of the arts coming in.”
This is the second year the faculty has showcased art in this way, having featured the work of expressionist sculptor and painter Michael Wedderburn in 2022.
Lloyd said the interdisciplinary collaboration between the faculties of humanities and business and economic sciences would be an annual event.
“This is part of the strategic objective of revitalising the humanities at our university.
“We want to expose the business connection to the art connection, and to link up the elements of interdisciplinary work.”
The business school building was the country’s first Four Green Star-rated building when it was built in 2015 — the top accolade from the Green Building Council of SA.
“Ecological sustainability is the optimal use of scarce resources, but using our building for young artists to expose their work is also creating a sustainable platform for them to become self-sufficient as an artist,” Lloyd said.
Osorio said the business school was a wonderful space to exhibit in: “The natural light and exposed materials are so well crafted, it is an artwork in itself.”
The exhibition is open to the public until Tuesday.
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