Jeannette Unite

"Unite is one of the worlds most respected artists when it comes to mining. Due to her artistically unconventional approach, she is often compared to an alchemist. In the creation and production of its works of art, Unite benefits significantly from its strong physical, chemical, geological and historical knowledge."

"Due to her artistically unconventional approach, she is often compared to an alchemist. In the creation and production of its works of art, Unite benefits significantly from her strong physical, chemical, geological and historical knowledge."

"Jeannette Unite also works directly with the products of mining. She, however, signals the artist’s complicity in the industry. Creating her own pastels using pigments ground from leftover minerals and mine tailings she continues the tradition of landscape representation, but knowingly constructs her images from the constituents of land itself."

"She has a deep reverence for all these substances and also a deep knowledge of their origin, their age, their occurrences. For them, it is important that we humans as end consumers and consumers develop a deeper awareness of the fact that practically everything we use every day comes from the minerals and materials we find on and in the earth. We ourselves consist of it! Unite is passionate about mixing, batching, firing, melting and reacting its substances. This passion and energy is clearly noticeable in her work. She works largely in the open air at home, so that the wind and other factors also leave room for chance."

"In Jeannettes work, the degree of abstraction varies. While in the abstract works just discussed the powerful effect of the self-created colours dominates and a very sensual, atmospheric impression is created, the objects in the "Highgear" series with the conveyor frames are clearly recognizable to the viewer. We can clearly see winding towers, machines, wheel bucket excavators, cranes... But even in these works there are undefined areas."

"Strelitzias and bones are ubiquitously the stuff of still life at high schools and tertiary institutions. Themes of flight, transcendence and masks as well as paintings relationship to music have also been well explored in these contexts. All of the above feature prominently in Jeanette Unites show entitled Sentences, and it is for this reason that I found myself suffering from a sense of deja-vu. Somehow though, I felt reluctant to dislike the exhibition. Perhaps it is the energy which clearly suffuses the show or perhaps the sincerity of Unites quotes which appear throughout the well-produced catalogue. She may, I guess, believe herself but Im a little less sure."