Good, That Conversation Was Never Finished

Overheard in the Gallery was started in 2019, and since it disolved in 2022, i hve not been able to stop thinking about its potential beyond what had become an archive on instagram.

Some projects arrive fully formed. This was never one of them. This one built itself slowly, through looking, listening, noticing, collecting tone, holding onto phrases, and sitting with the feeling that the conversation around art is often just as revealing as the work itself.

Sometimes sharper.

Sometimes funnier.

Sometimes more honest.

So bringing it back now feels exciting, but also vulnerable. The art world is a scary place. The South African art world is a scary place. People are critical. People are quick to dismiss. Quick to judge. Quick to reduce something before it has had a chance to become itself. That can make it difficult to make anything with openness or humour or risk. It can make people guarded. It can make experimentation feel expensive, emotionally and otherwise.

I think this project comes from that exact tension.

Overheard in the Gallery is not here to compete with the art world. It is here to complement it. To sit beside it. To respond to it. To make it more porous, more conversational, more alive. It is about creating and curating a space where artworks can speak to each other, where ideas can move across generations, mediums, scenes, and spaces, and where language itself can become part of the experience of looking.

That matters to me.

I have always been interested in what happens around artworks, not only inside them. The things people say. The things they imply. The things they perform, repeat, believe, exaggerate, soften, and leave hanging in the air. Sometimes a work needs context. Sometimes it needs friction. Sometimes it needs a companion. Sometimes it needs a line beside it that opens it up, sharpens it, or shifts how it is being read. And sometimes, to be honest, people want something on their wall that says the thing they have been thinking and have never quite seen articulated before.

That is where these works come in. They are text-based poster works designed to function in more than one way. They can stand entirely on their own as artworks. But they can also sit next to other works, adding context, critique, humour, tension, or conversation. They are not there to explain art into submission. They are there to make art more interesting, more critical, more engaging, and sometimes more fun.

Because art should be allowed to be serious, but people should not take themselves too seriously inside it. That part is important to me too. This project is critical, but it is not cruel. It is thoughtful, but it is also playful. It makes room for wit, for honesty, for overheard remarks, for side-eyes, for intelligence without performance. A lot needs to be said, yes, but not everything needs to be said with a heavy hand. Life is not that serious. Art is not that serious. Or at least, not all the time. The art world needs to be reminded of that every now and then.

This return takes the form of limited-edition, high-quality poster prints. Small runs. Intentional releases. No endless reproduction. No quiet reprints later. Once a work is gone, it is gone. That is something I want to protect carefully. I want these works to be collectible in a real sense, not just in the language people use to sell things. That means editions stay closed. It means the promise matters. It also means support matters. For this project to continue, people need to support it. They need to buy the work, share it, live with it, and believe in it enough to let it grow.

That is part of why bringing it back feels exposed. It is one thing to think about a project for years. It is another to ask it to survive in public. But I think it is worth doing because I think this kind of space is needed. A space where artworks can talk to each other.

A space where criticism can be stylish, light on its feet, and still meaningful.

A space where walls can speak. A space where the conversation does not end when you leave the gallery. That is the real point of this for me. To let the critical conversation continue beyond the institution, beyond the opening, beyond the caption, beyond the polite small talk. Into homes, into studios, into offices, into private spaces where people actually live with what they think. Onto walls that can hold more than decoration. Onto walls that can hold a point of view.

So yes, Overheard in the Gallery is back. And good. That conversation was never finished.

xx