Juandré van Eck · Pretoria Art Museum
Following his win at the 2025 Sasol New Signatures Visual Arts Competition, Juandré van Eck returns to the Pretoria Art Museum with Die Vallei van Adem, his first major solo exhibition.
Van Eck extends the ideas behind his winning work, Cycles of the Mind, through a new installation of ceramic sound vessels designed to be activated by visitors. These are sculptures that depend on movement. Picked up and gently tilted, they draw in air almost like a breath, while air moving through water inside each vessel produces its own distinctive sound.
Each sculpture is constructed from two connected ceramic chambers and has a different tonal quality. Smaller vessels produce higher notes, while larger forms resonate at deeper pitches. Heard together, the works begin to operate like a loose choir, with the sound of the exhibition changing as people move through the gallery and interact with them.
Participation is therefore part of the work itself. Visitors do more than encounter a completed installation: their movements create its soundscape. Each interaction gives a vessel breath and voice, adding another note to an exhibition that is continually being remade by the people inside it.
The exhibition marks a significant development in Van Eck’s practice. He received a Merit Award in the Sasol New Signatures competition in 2024 before being named Overall Winner in 2025, earning the opportunity to develop this solo presentation.
Die Vallei van Adem opens alongside the 2026 Sasol New Signatures exhibition, which presents 123 works selected for this year’s competition, including those by the Overall Winner, Runner-up and Merit Award recipients.
Together, the two exhibitions offer visitors a chance to see two different stages of the competition’s role in emerging South African art: this year’s new discoveries alongside an artist using his previous win to expand an ambitious idea into a full-scale exhibition.
Date & Time
Exhibition Dates
10/09/2026 until 08/11/2026
Location
Pretoria Art Museum
Pretoria, Gauteng
