Blankspace
A tiny gallery shop peeping out of a 100-year-old building on Roeland Street, Cape Town – at the heart of the newly designated Design & Innovation District, otherwise known as “The Fringe”. Which makes Blankspace a place to take yourself if you take art and design seriously but not too seriously.
Bottom line?
It's a quirky little space
with a sense of humour, selling limited edition prints, cards,
stationary* and other collectables – stuff to fill those blank spaces on
your walls and maybe, even, in your life…
A platform for artists
My name is Charlene Walton. I grew up always knowing I wanted to do something creative. In fact, my first grade teacher told my Mom: 'I know she's going to be an artist one day…'.
I'm now a graphic designer by profession and an artist at heart. I have a passion for quirky, slightly offbeat things, and am inspired by anything and everything that surrounds me from the art in my morning cup of coffee to my passion for bubble cars to beautiful packaging (far more than the contents!) to the slightly strange-looking bunny standing on my desk.
Blankspace is a platform not only to showcase my own work, but also for other creatives I've met along the way, from Baltimore in the States to local Capetonians, all of whom contribute their own unique styles and personalities to the space.
Their work comes in the form of photographs, quality prints and original pieces, in limited or ongoing print runs at affordable prices. The idea is to launch new shows and feature artists month to month or bi-monthly, adding to the overall collection as we find interesting things.
Some of the prints are purely graphic; some tell stories; and some are reflections of the trials and tribulations of marriage - like the typographic one that tells us 'I am not perfect, but I'm perfect enough to love'. It came from an argument my husband and I once had, and this line was the grande finale to his defence: as he stomped off, I just had to write those profound words down. Needless to say, the argument is long forgotten and this is the only rather bitter-sweet recollection we have of that cataclysmic moment.
Stationary* vs. Stationery
Call us 'old-school' if you
like but we love Letterpress
printing & Stationary
with an 'a'.
Call us ‘old school’ if you like but we love both letterpress printing, which Gutenberg and Caxton brought into the world in the mid 15th century, and stationary with an 'a’, which started life early in the 15th century.
Both spellings derive from the Latin statio -onis, defined as a station, post or residence, a place where something is ‘standing still’. The word 'stationery', however, was originally spelled with an 'a' in English. It derived from the fact that such products were sold in 'stationary' shops, because of the weight of paper goods, as opposed to by travelling pedlars.
Because of my love for beautiful stationary (with an ‘a’), we decided to launch our own range to mark the opening of the store. The Blankspace range includes a selection of gift cards, tags and postcards that are the stationary staples you simply have to keep in your desk drawer for any occasion. They’re all letterpress printed in black on recycled paper. There is also a small range of hand-printed gift wrap - which I'm hoping to expand to include a bright range of colours for the festive season.
We love things that make us smile & truly believe inspiration lies in everything that surrounds us in our day to day lives. Even something as simple as the dreaded eye test can be a thing of beauty if viewed from a different perspective - from this our philosophy: 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' sums up just that as seen in this Limited Edition print available in our store.
Blankspace Collaborators
See below whom we've collaborated with so far. Or get in touch if you are a creative interested in taking part.
Adriaan Louw
A Travel and Interior photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa.
Come visit us to see a selection of Adriaan's work in store.
Paul Painting
A graduate at the Technikon Witwatersrand, exploring various creative fields such as graphic design, traditional painting techniques and film making - featured at the Blankpsace store are limited edition etchings. Dark and often moody narratives are offset by a sense of wry and knowing dark humor, wherein anthropomorphic taxidermied apes square off against burlesque wrestlers, vicious criminals rub shoulders with ersatz dinosaurs: a phantasmagoria of ill starred misfits.
Come visit us to see a selection of Paul's work in store.
Simone Rayner
Born in 1981, she spoke with a strong Australian accent at one point but lost it in 1996 much to her partner's delight. She loves many things like tennis and surfing and singing but she's not very good at them so she has to keep on drawing. She loves dogs, very much.
Jamie Shelman
I'm an artist and graduate of The Rhode Island School of Design that loves drawing, fat cats, and finding a sense of the ridiculous in everyday life.
Come visit us to see a selection of Jamie's work in store.
Bia van Deventer
Bia’s design style does not conform to a particular school perse. The golden thread is however the exploration of a vintage aesthetic and the reintroduction thereof in a more conceptual and contemporary milieu.
Like Bia's Facebook page here.
Karen Vermeulen
My name is Karen and I'm an illustrator living and working in Cape Town. When I'm not drawing I work in advertising, but even then I'm probably doodling. I love all things cute and quirky like llamas and baby elephants.
Follow Blankspace on Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest to see what we're up to.
For commissions, collaborations & trade enquires contact us on hello@blankspace.co.za