CHRISTINA VAN DER MERWE | Geographies | SHELF

June 14 - September 18, 2026

"Let your imagination change what you know. Suddenly a gray rock becomes ashen or clouded with dream. A ring round a rock is luck. To find a red rock is to discover earthblood. Blue rocks make you believe in them. Patterns and flecks on rocks are bits of different countries and terrains, speckled questions. Conglomerates are the movement of land in the freedom of water, smoothed into a small thing you can hold in your hand, rub against your face. Sandstone is soothing and lucid. Shale, of course, is rational. Find pleasure in these ordinary palm worlds. Help yourself prepare for a life. Recognize when there are no words for the pain, when there are no words for the joy, there are rocks. Fill all the clear drinking glasses in your house with rocks, no matter what your husband or lover thinks. Gather rocks in small piles on the counters, the tables, the windowsills. Divide rocks by color, texture, size, shape. Collect some larger stones, place them along the floor of your living room, never mind what the guests think, build an intricate labyrinth of inanimates. Move around your rocks like a curl of water. Begin to detect smells and sounds to different varieties of rock. Give names to some, not geological, but of your own making. Memorize their presence, know if one is missing or out of place. Bathe them in water once each week. Carry a different one in your pocket every day. Move away from normal but don’t notice it. Move towards excess but don’t care. Own more rocks than clothing, than dishes, than books. Lie down next to them on the floor, put the smaller ones in your mouth occasionally. Sometimes, feel lithic, or petrified, or rupestral instead of tired, irritable, depressed. At night, alone, naked, place one green, one red, one ashen on different parts of your body. Tell no one.”

― Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water

Christina van der Merwe (b. 1984, Pretoria, South Africa) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Solo and two-person exhibitions include City, Long Play Contemporary, Santa Monica, CA (2025), Untuning the Sky, Clark Island, Maine (2022); Calendar, Maake Projects, State College, PA (2021); Painting on a Porch, 57w57 Arts, Wilton, CT (2020). Group exhibitions include Jung Lovers, Soloway, Brooklyn, NY (2022); Behind the Times, Chapter 5, online, (2020); Biophilia, Unpaved Gallery, Yucca Valley, CA (2019). Her work has been published in ArtMaze, Issue 16, curated by Scott Ogden, Shrine, NYC.