House and Leisure – August 2019

But this profusion of works is just a precursor
to the main gallery room. Located at the end of
a polished concrete patio walkway, this is where
the couple listen to records, read and experiment
with the curation of their most treasured art.
At one end of the room, Claudette Schreuders’
‘Romance’ horse sculpture creates a weird,
almost sci fi-like presence in its place in the
foreground, standing between two major works
by Wim Botha and a monumental painting by
Serge Alain Nitegeka. In contrast, the earth tones
of a rusted Amatuli server draw your eye upward
to Willem Boshoff’s iconic ‘Prick’ piece, which
is layered with hundreds of Acacia thorns.
On the far side of the gallery (best appreciated
from a Polder sofa by Hella Jongerius) is a near-
complete installation of Penny Siopis’ ‘Pinky
Pinky’ paintings – their eyeballs staring out
from the plastic-looking impasto. Giant works by
Portia Zvavahera and Matthew Hindley adjoin
the installation, their scale dwarfing one of the
collection’s most curious figures: a 63cm-tall
sculpture of controversial artist Ed Young, with
his pants pulled down and complete with tiny
body hairs, leaning against the wall. The work
was the only item in an empty gallery at Cash or
Card, Young’s 2013 solo show at SMAC Gallery.
Jaco’s landscape paintings also feature
throughout the home, and his works have been
exhibited at several local and international
galleries over the years – most recently at
Menno’s Galleria Menno in Rovinj, Croatia.
‘This farm has been in my family for four
generations, but even as a small boy, I was drawn
to the visual aspect of it, the beauty of it,’ Jaco
says. ‘Being an artist, I’ve come to love it even
more. When I moved back here after teaching
art for eight years, I had some small means to
begin collecting, and then once we really started,
our house grew from that – and we had to expand
it to make space for it all. But our whole lives
revolve around the arts, and this place, far away
from everything, is where we get to keep it.’ O