Pierre Fouché



About

Pierre Fouché (b. 1977, Pretoria) introduces himself as a lacemaker. This designation highlights his interest in the techniques, materials, histories, and social relevance of textiles. His respect for technique, tradition, and innovation have earned Fouché his place within the craft establishment as an internationally respected practitioner and teacher of contemporary bobbin lace. His penchant for arcane media and aesthetics, has led his practice to include macramé, drawn thread embroidery, encaustic painting, and pinhole photography, as well as traditional painting, drawing and printmaking.

Thematically, his work focusses on portraiture and the gaze, photography and representation, appropriation and web-media cultures, as well as some forays into overt queer politics. Often informed by world art history, his desire to understand the machinery of contemporary visual cultures tends toward the Romantic. His consistent marriage of iconography with craftsmanship also contributes to this reading.

Pierre Fouché achieved his MA in Fine Arts from the University of Stellenbosch in 2006. He has subsequently had several solo exhibitions, most recently, The Little Binche Peacock and Other Utopian Dreams, his 5th solo exhibition with WHATIFTHEWORLD, the installation includes his work as recipient of a Spier Artist Patronage Program bursary received from 2017-19. In 2018 he was the featured artist of the Andorran city of Escaldes- Engordany’s 12th Textile and Glass Symposium. Notable group exhibitions include We, the People: 30 years of Democracy in South Africa (2024-2025) at Norval Foundation, Indian Ocean Craft Triennale (2021), Lace/not lace at the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey; Crafted: Objects in flux at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (2018), Women’s work at the Iziko South African National Gallery (2016), as well as the touring exhibition, Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community, first exhibited at the Leslie + Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York (2015).

Fouché is well respected in the lace making community and has conducted many practical and theoretical workshops, most recently he was invited to present Bobbin Lace Design & Binche Cloth Manipulation at the Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, NJ, USA. In 2006 he won the the ABSA L’atelier art competition which resulted in a 6 month Residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris. From January to April 2014 he was awarded a Prohelvetia residency at IAAB, Basel. His work is represented in the public collections of the Iziko South African National Gallery, the Artphilein Foundation, Switzerland and Norval Foundation, South Africa.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2019 The Little Binche Peacock and other Utopian dreams - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
2017 Vreesaanjaende Verligting - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
2015 The Fallen and the Drowned - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
2014 The Lacemaker’s studio, DOCK, Basel, Switzerland
2012 These Waves - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
Fred, Denis & Other Portraits, Solo Presentation at Volta7 with WHATIFTHEWORLD, Basel, Switzerland
2008 Convoluted Involvement, Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town
Convoluted Involvement, ABSA Gallery, Johannesburg
2006 The Distance Between Us, Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town
2005 Excluded & Unsaid, Blank Projects, Cape Town

Selected Group Exhibitions

2024 We, the People: 30 years of Democracy in South Africa, Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
Against the Bias: Unravelling Material Codes, Reservoir Projects, Mount Nelson, Cape Town, South Africa
Significant Other - WHATIFTHEWORLD x Krone, Tulbagh, Cape Town, South Africa
2022 Indecent - A group exhibition of erotic lace miniatures - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, South Africa
2020 Matereality, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town
2019 Festival of Light, Spier Estate, Stellenbosch
2018 Ebb ‘n’ Flow, Place and Climate, Walford Mill Museum, Wimborne, UK
Lacemakers, Walford Mill Museum, Wimborne, UK

Lace, Not-Lace, Hunterdon Art Museum, Clinton, NJ, USA.
The 12th Textile and Lace Symposium, CAEE (Escaldes-Engordany Art Gallery), Escaldes-Engordany, Andorra.
Sunday Service, GUS Gallery, Stellenbosch
2017 You and I, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town
2016 Women's Work, IZIKO South African National Gallery, Cape Town
After the Thrill is Gone, Gwen Frostic School of Art, Michigan
Dear Europa ... - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
2015 Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community, Boston Centre for the Arts, Boston
Monologues, Aardklop Festival, Potchefstroom
Foreign Bodies - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
Objects in Flux - Exploring the Boundaries of Craft, Boston Museum of Fine Art, Boston
’n Koerant Gebore Uit Hoop En Smart (curated by Sandra Hanekom), Die Burger Suidoosterfees, Artscape, Cape Town, SA
2014 Queer Threads, Leslie & Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York
Brave New World...20 Years of Democracy, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town
What lies beneath, Equus Gallery, Cavalli Estate, SA
2013 Suspicious Minds - Artist's Exploration of Mind and Matter, Michaelis Gallery, Cape Town
2011 Trading Freedoms - (part of the conference Love, Sex, Desire & the (Post)Colonial, University of London
Ingrid Jonker, Rust & Vrede, Durbanville, Cape Town
2010 Manet's too tight to mention, WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town
The Menippean Uprising, Blank Projects, Cape Town
Ways of Seeing, Ore gallery, Cape Town
Inverting the Pyramid, Blank Projects, Cape Town
1910-2010: From Pierneef to Gugulective, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town
Swallow My Pride, Blank Projects, Cape Town
2009 The gift (in collaboration with Liza Grobler), Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town
Studio visit, Association of Visual Arts (AVA), Cape Town
Signs/Representation, 14-1 Gallerie, Stuttgart, Germany
Obsessie, KKNK Oudshoorn
2008 The Bijou Burns Again, UCA, Cape Town
2007 A Legacy of Men, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg
Selected projects 2005-2007, Blank Projects, Cape Town
Love & misery, BIJOU art studios, Cape Town
Greenhouse, Bell-Roberts Gallery, Laurensford, Somerset West
Portrait/Landscape, Bell-Roberts Gallery, Laurensford, Somerset West
ABSA L’atelier regional finalists exhibitions, Art-B: Bellville & ABSA Gallery, Johannesburg
Fest, Rust & Vrede, Durbanville, Cape Town
2006 Take it like a man, Blank Projects, Cape Town
2005 Paper Never Lies, VEO, Cape Town
ABSA L’atelier regional finalists exhibition, Art-B: Bellville, Cape Town

Presentations

2020 The Burden of Excess

Art Fairs

Cape Town Art Fair 2024
Artissima 2023
NOMAD Capri 2023
Cape Town Art Fair 2023
Miart 2022

Selected Publications

2013      Selected Works