Isabelle Grobler

Isabelle Grobler (b. 1982, Pretoria) grew up in Bloemfontein, South Africa, spending her childhood between town and the family farm. After a career as a Junior Springbok hockey player, she studied Fine Art at the University of the Free State (BA, 2009) and at the University of Cape Town (MFA, 2012). She later settled in Cape Town, where she worked as a full-time artist.

In 2015, Grobler spent two months in Israel as the second participant of the START Residency Program. Working in the Jaffa studio, she created a new body of work that culminated in The Cannibal’s Congress, exhibited in a final show on 9 September 2015.

The project, part of her ongoing cycle The Cannibal’s Banquet, examined the politics of consumption as a psychological and social function, which she described as a form of “psychological cannibalism.”

Among the most notable works produced during her stay were the large drawing Founding Ideology and the sculptural installation Wedding Night.

In the latter, she assembled discarded objects collected from the streets and beaches of Jaffa and Tel Aviv together with the Jewish shofar, generating new meanings that challenged ideas of authority and tradition.

Her works created surreal, dreamlike environments populated by hybrid machine- organisms, that transformed urban debris into ambiguous, unclassifiable beings.

Reflecting on her residency, Grobler described the experience as transformative both artistically and personally. It marked a turning point in her practice, set the course for future projects, and deepened her understanding of Israel’s complexity, culture, and people.