Jane Alexander winner of the 1995 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual art. 21 September to 21 October 1995 Jane Alexander is a sculptor whose works comment on current socio­political issues in South Africa. Using direct modelling techniques and working in plaster, she produces life­size figures, which gain presence from their human scale, and small figures set in multimedia installations. In her sculptures and photomontages she synthesises her perceptions of the human condition, locating her themes in her own experience. The artist offers no supporting commentary and maintains that her sculpture is primarily a visual statement. As a result, her works require close scrutiny and ask the viewer to construct meanings. Many of Alexander's pieces have originated in her response to a violent society. Avoiding the traps of narrative and manipulated emotionalism, her forms are disquieting and uncomfortable. "The figures," states art historian Marion Arnold, "sometimes function as both aggressors and victims and they challenge the viewer's attitudes to personal and social existence". At the same time, visitors to the Standard Bank Gallery were also able to see some of the other exhibitions that were on view at the 1995 Standard Bank National Arts Festival in Grahamstown: "The Muse on Location" featuring the photographs of the late Ken Oosterbroek, the award­winning press photographer who spent much of his time documenting social and political conditions within strife­torn regions of South Africa. Also on display were some of the "Iziqhaza" ­ decorative Zulu earplugs from the Standard Bank African Art Collection housed at the University of the Witwatersrand Art Galleries, together with a major sculpture by Mashego Johannes Segogela (on loan from the Johannesburg Art Gallery) and ceramics by Henriette Ngako. The exhibition was opened by the chairman of the Festival Committee and head of Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand, Professor Alan Crump.