Pierre Fouché
Available Works
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