With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and announcement of a state of disaster in March 2020, it became mandatory for all South Africans to wear masks in public. Discarded, used masks soon littered the streets and fields in and around my local town. The two works, Wave and Wake (super spreader), mark one person’s attempt to make sense of the impact of the pandemic by working with its debris: discarded, used medical masks.  Each mask carries traces and stories: smudges of the make-up worn by the mask’s wearer, grime from the street, sprigs of grass from the field where it fell or blew. Since mid-2020, I have been collecting masks that I found walking around town, and - adding my own used masks - started sewing these together using blanket stitch. While I sanitised the masks, they still dirtied my hands. The twine that I used for sewing – also found on the streets – did the same.  The work Wake (super spreader) followed in 2021, and was inspired by the first in-person weddings, funerals and graduation celebrations that were allowed following hard lockdown. Although we were excited to see friends, and relieved that we could once more celebrate and mourn together, fear of infection was never absent from these events. Even then, in some instances, the events led to further illness and even death. The black masks are decorated with shiny confetti, balloons and ribbons collected on the university campus following the first post-lockdown graduation ceremonies.

The time-consuming stitching of the masks into quilt-like textiles forced me to literally get my hands dirty as I tried to make sense of the threat and the psychological consequences of COVID-19: the isolation, and the social and economic impact of lockdown as well as dire consequences such as illness and death. While the sections of stitched masks might resemble quilts, instead of suggesting comfort, they engender revulsion as the soiled patches evoke the highly infectious virus. Although COVID-19 regulations have been scrapped in South Africa and masks are no longer worn, many have not recovered from the devastation wrought by the pandemic. The works invite viewers to pause and reflect on their experiences of this harrowing period, and the stories that might be buried inside these masks.

Wake (super spreader).
2020-2023
Mixed media tapestry

 

Wave
2020-2023
Mixed media quilt

 

The series of digitally printed images, originating from cloud and structural photographs, serves as a contemporary exploration relating to the Rorschach inkblot tests, inviting viewers into a realm of introspection and interpretation. Each piece is crafted to evoke a sense of depth and ambiguity, reminiscent of the psychological complexities often associated with inkblot tests.

Central to the series is the thematic exploration of dualities and contrasts¬ - good versus evil, life versus death, heaven versus earth - manifested in the symmetrical compositions and evocative titles. "Ruins, New Beginnings" alludes to a scene where a turbulent landscape emerges from the remnants of destruction, with subtle imagery suggestive of hope and transformation.

The subsequent works - titled "Faith," "Power," "Contemplation," and "Peace"- further delve into the spiritual landscape, drawing inspiration from scripture and contemporary societal concerns. "Faith" embodies the essence of assurance and conviction, symbolised by subtle cross-like forms, prompting reflection on the intangible yet profound aspects of belief.
"Power" juxtaposes the tangible world of overhead electrical lines and urban infrastructure with the symbolic strength found in scripture, offering a poignant commentary on resilience amidst economic uncertainty. Meanwhile, "Contemplation" weaves together elements of the natural and man-made world, inviting viewers to meditate on the intersection of reality and perception.

In "Peace," the artist explores the elusive quest for tranquillity in a chaotic world, blending earthly and celestial imagery to create a liminal space of solace and introspection. Each work in the series serves as a catalyst for spiritual exploration, encouraging viewers to navigate the complexities of existence with renewed insight and understanding.

Benediction: sticks and stones library 2023

Mixed media: Jacaranda twigs, Sedimentary quartzite rock with enamel paint, cotton fabric dyed with potassium permanganate

The work, Benediction: sticks and stones library, grew alongside my fascination with and research into the geological makeup of the area I find myself living in at this point in my life. Sedimentary rock becomes metaphorical for sedimentary trauma. My body becomes a stencil reflected on the rock and temporal time itself is reflected as nothing when compared to the physical reality of this eons-olds piece of quartzite that is, was and will be – far beyond my puny life and efforts and any polemic that is current. The work includes a book with writing about the rock over cross writing over a discussion of a suicide attempt and has the word “NOTHING” cut out of the text with three figures of me with arms raised in symbolic Benediction crudely stitched onto the paper. The work further assumes the aspect of a pulpit or podium as the book, with its encaustic soaked cover, is suspended in the centre of a purpose-made stand which is covered by woven cotton hangings. These hangings were dyed using potassium permanganate (a powerful oxidant that is recommended as a disinfectant) which, in its turn, constantly erodes the fabric. On top of the podium and cloth is a quartzite rock that has been covered in graffiti that speaks to important dates and the contemplation of the rock as a signifier of nothing. Nothing in this case is opposed to the idea of something. It does not point to the absence of anything, but rather to the contemplative presence of nothing. Embedded in this rock is a row of jacaranda twigs (that “bleed” red thread), interwoven with a piece of fabric that repeats the phrase “FORGIVE TO FORGET FORGET TO FORGIVE”. This work becomes a heteroglossial conversation that the viewer might find difficult to decipher – a cacophony of screaming, crying, talking and stillness. Or, it might simply be a rock on a podium with torn fabric made by an obsessive and possibly delusional artist. This judgement I leave to the viewer.

In nature, a nest is built, torn to pieces, rebuilt, and abandoned. It is a collective point of precious keepsakes or a stronghold on the point of collapse. The bird plays architect in a state of flux as it constructs a haven.
Through a laborious act of building five thematic nest clusters, we reflect on the nature of human identity using the nest as a metaphor for the phases of plunder, reconstruction, re-evaluation, and adaptations of our identity in an attempt to find a sense of belonging and security. The installations depict four main categories of belonging identified by Hiltunen et al. (2020: 11) that run parallel with factors influencing identity categorised as: (a) positive belonging, (b) searching for belonging, (c) struggling to belong and (d) scepticism towards belonging.  

The last of the series confronts the viewer with an immersive experience.  

These factors link with issues relating to family and core relationships, social media as a mask in the contexts of belonging, migration and immigrants, and global citizenship.
Mixed media is used throughout the series and includes both natural and man-made fibres. Sound installations embedded in the nests promote a thematic experience, creating an opportunity for reflection.

Reference
Hiltunen, K., Sääskilahti, N., Vallius, A., Pöyhönen, S., Jäntti, S., Saresma, T. 2020. Anchoring belonging through material practices in participatory arts-based research. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 21(2): 11-22. https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-21.2.3403 .

Na Bermuda

During the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 (also known as the South African War), some 25 000 Boer prisoners of war and their sympathisers from around the world were sent to camps in India, Ceylon, St. Helena and Bermuda. The artist's book, Na Bermuda (the Afrikaans title means “To Bermuda”), captures the essence of the prisoners’ journey to the Bermuda islands in the western Atlantic and their attempts to record their experiences in writing. It serves both as an embodiment of vanishing memories and as a representation of times, events and people that have faded into obscurity. The artist's book provides an interactive experience for readers that resembles that of a researcher piecing together the past through archival materials. Furthermore, examining the artwork may elicit memories of family history related to the war or encourage reflection on the predicament of ordinary people who become entangled in warfare. Handicrafts made by prisoners of war inspired the format and execution of the work.

Toekoms Spoke (Future ghosts)
Film
2023

In the context of the last phases of the so-called Border War in South Africa in the 1980s, Toekoms Spoke expresses the memory and anticipation of a conscripted young man, on the train on his way to joining the army.
In a format similar to a classic three-act play, this project explores the notion of subjective time through a video triptych that expresses memory, attention and anticipation through montage. Montage creates a sense of conflated time through a linear unpacking. The first chapter (chapter one) explores the past through memory and possibly a recollecting dream. Chapter two concerns the present, which is expressed as a conflated instance in time influenced by the past and the future. Lastly, chapter three suggests a dream that anticipates possible future states.

This project explores subjective time in cinematography as the concepts of memory or recollection and anticipation or expectation, and links this to the concept of liminality in cinema. Memory and anticipation are aspects of subjective time that influence the present. The young man in the filmic montage waits on the train, remembering the time his father was conscripted. Through this recollection of the past and his current state (also conscripted now), he anticipates his future, all the while finding himself in a liminal state.
William Harmon (2000:291) defines liminality as a “state of being on a threshold in space or time”. In stories, the notion of liminality is salient when characters reflect (learning about themselves and their world), change or mentally grow. One might think of liminality using the analogy of the threshold; however, this description regards liminality as somehow static. Instead, as an illustration of liminality, Harmon (2000:291) offers the impression of the sea and seashore. The sea stretches from the shore into the distance, forming a barrier between land and sky. Thus, setting forth into the sea is to disappear eventually beyond the horizon.

In Toekoms Spoke, the train (both the journey and the cabin) constitutes such a liminal threshold; it could be seen as a lieu de mémoire (Pierre Nora’s [1989] term) and also a time-space of transition and uncertainty.

Credits: Toekoms Spoke
Written, directed and produced by Héniel Fourie
Cinematography by Armand Aucamp
Art direction by Paula Kruger

Speelgrond/Playground
 

This installation, Speelgrond/Playground, incorporates found objects, images and junk materials that have been discarded. The work suggests loss and power abuse during times of upheaval - wars and disasters. I work with artefacts of our time and try to transform them into archaeological relics revealing human pathos and weakness. I try to create a poetic moment - an opportunity for reflection.

Blyvooruitzight 1, 2 and 3
Drawings: pen and watercolour

Up
Down
Installations: stone, steel, safety helmets

Crisis control
Installation. Safety helmet, fire extinguisher

All works 2023

As an artist, I am fascinated by the theme of Stairways and ruins. To me, it represents a connection to the past, a journey through time, as well as the resilience of the human spirit. This body of work focuses on abandoned gold mine shafts in the North-West and Gauteng provinces of South Africa, and the grand stairways that lead deep into the earth. As I was born and grew up as a miner’s daughter, the mining industry played a significant role in my personal history, as it did in the country’s. Abandoned mineshafts serve as a reminder of both great wealth that was extracted from the earth, but also the many lives that were lost in the pursuit of that wealth.

I hope that my work encourages viewers to reflect on the complexities of human society and the impact we have on the world around us.

Blyvooruitzight 1

Blyvooruitzight 2

Up

Sorrow Fountain (The Murder of Louis Tumpowsky)
Oil on canvas and mixed media
2023

Louis Tumpowsky was a Jewish man murdered in the North-West province in South Africa by Dorethea van der Merwe in 1918, who was tried in Potchefstroom and hung in Pretoria, becoming the first white woman in history to be executed by the South African state. It is a story of love, affairs, poison, a sangoma, deceit and complex racial relations, but also forms part of my upcoming and continued research of Jewish history in the North-West province.

The oil painting depicts, in dramatic fashion, lighting and style, the murder taking place.

As a Jewish man based in Johannesburg, I identify with, or see some ancestral links, with Tumpowsky. The work is sympathetic to him, but does not attempt to demonize anybody else. Van der Merwe’s accomplices were coaxed into aiding her and complicity. The painting connects with the ruins side of the theme, Stairways and Ruins, more specifically with memory, remembrance and memorialisation (of Tumpowsky as a person, but also of Jewish South African history), folklore, myth and legend because even though this was a real history, Van der Merwe’s motives and methods involving the supranatural and use of magic, which she never denied, have become topics of legend, as well as then fact and fiction, autobiography, biography, in the telling of a true historical event.

As a multidisciplinary artist from Johannesburg, South Africa, I use archival research to locate narratives, allegories and semiotic pointers that are charged and informed by historical events or mythologies. These fables influence my current focus on paintings and mixed media installations. I question how these narratives that reflect the past and present also resonate within a wider social context, initiating forms of activism that bring people together.

Relic I, II, III, IV, V VI, VII
All brass, glass and oil on clay
All 2022
All 13,8 diameter, freestanding

The works represent an ancient spiritual school of thought, found in many cultures, that uses the physical to access the spiritual. To move from the gross to the spiritual is the essence of the series. The work explores the concept of one's energy rising to a divine possibility, thereby altering one's perception. It is a metaphoric stairway to the spiritual as suggested by Bessie Head.

It is believed that energy rises up the spine through seven energy centres or chakras of the body during meditation and prayer. The chakras are located at various points of the body. It is believed that once energy reaches the furrow of the brow, a heightened sense of perception, known as the third eye, becomes accessible, evident in the works. Some components of each sculpture were painted in colours associated with the chakras.

Hanuman
Ashwattama
Parshuram
All 2023
 

All digital prints on Epson advanced archival paper

The notion of ruins appealed to me. Since my work makes use of Hindu mythology and an Orientalist and structuralist mythological framework, I tend to focus on the idea of mythology as a means for interpreting the Western world. I wanted my work to focus on the notion of ‘living ruins’ which is embodied by the Chiranjeevis, the seven immortals, in Hinduism. Of these seven Chiranjeevis, I have chosen three figures whom I felt embodied the exhibition’s theme. The first is Parshuram (a man believed to be an incarnation of the deity Vishnu). Parshuram was born to the Brahmin (priest/ascetic) caste; however, he took up arms and fought against the Kshatriyas (warrior caste) when they began to use their power against those whom they were charged with protecting. He is also an immortal charged with waiting for Kalki, another form of Vishnu who will destroy the Earth when the time comes. My depiction of Parshuram focuses on Parshuram and Kalki. In my work, Kalki is born as a Zulu warrior, playing on the idea that if all life originated from Africa, it should end here as well.

Secondly, there is Hanuman, a deity who is believed to be an incarnation of the god Shiva. He was born among the ape-man race to help Lord Rama restore balance. Hanuman is said to have swallowed the sun as a child. Only after the gods bowed to him, he let it go. As a gift for doing so, he was granted immortality and charged by Lord Rama to guide humanity on the path of righteousness. In my work, his depiction moves away from his usual wrestler appearance towards that of a wandering hermit or fakir who only seeks bhav (devotion).

As depicted in my work, the figure Ashwatthama becomes a tragic immortal. He was a great warrior, blessed with a magical gem in his head, which made him immortal, and allowed him to overcome hunger, age and illness. He participated in the greatest war in Hindu mythology known as the Mahabharat. After the war, Ashwatthama attempted to murder an unborn baby. The child was saved by Lord Krishna who, as a punishment, had Ashwattama’s gem removed, which left a giant rotting hole in his forehead. In my work, I explore his character as a bitter old man who is taunted by the whimsical Krishna.

Lesego Motsiri (digital prints - digital drawing on aluminium dibond)
Pieter Odendaal (original poem)
Earthly Remembrance (I-V)
2023

Earthly Remembrance is a collaborative work that explores themes of (un)belonging through the mediums of poetry and digital prints. Odendaal’s poem “bainsvlei, mangaung” (below) explores legacies of land appropriation and relationships to soil in the context of a post-apartheid poet who deals with his ancestors’ actions. This poem served as inspiration for the creation of five digital prints by Lesego Motsiri, based on photographs taken at various graveyards in Mangaung. The prints hint at explosions, disorientation and imbalance, but also at regrowth, thereby mirroring the theme of the poem. The works are linked to the Artivive app, thereby offering the viewer an immersive AR-experience of the work. Each of the prints were animated on the Artivive app and includes audio of Odendaal reciting excerpts from the poem. The work offers Odendaal a way to process the legacy related to the soil of his forefathers, and the collaboration with Motsiri adds further layers to the work, incorporating perspectives from a descendent of those who were previously oppressed. Earthly Remembrance speaks to the exhibition’s themes of memory, revision and restitution, as well as reimagined pasts.

Original poem:
bainsvlei, mangaung
Pieter Odendaal

Market-face
2023
Digital illustration print, framed with integrated monotype prints
420mmX 594mm (A2 landscape)

Market-face is a social commentary on the African economy and the way we are portrayed to tourists.

We find ourselves 28 years into the post-Apartheid era where South Africa is the go-to cosmopolitan place. While the image of Africa (as it is portrayed to the world) slowly changes and is demystified by the internet, many forms of cultural representation are something I still find interesting.
Souvenir shops are especially fascinating because of this. These shops are often riddled with items that give a concise and affordable means of cultural representation, and sometimes reduction. The seller may not necessarily know the symbols and origins that have perhaps been washed away or reduced by centuries of forced cultural ruin. Although the history is preserved through the spoken tradition, we start to see a disconnect between the records and origins while the symbolic forms of African history are being traded for money. It portrays a fine line between the celebration of cultural pride and the commodification of sacred symbols to be appropriated at an affordable price.

The artwork also draws on the metaphorical strings of the masks- we don’t know who’s who. The consumers could be the tourists themselves or it could be us as Africans, scavenging for a way to compensate for the lack of knowledge we may have about our ancient traditions and how they’ve been symbolised. The Zulu angels are pivotal to the message of the artwork. This is representative of the fact that of all the things that have been ripped away from Africans, the biggest robbery has been that of the knowledge of our spiritual origins.

Despite this, we celebrate what we can and find a way to put on a happy face, even if it is a mask, and we frame it as our only way of celebrating our culture. Our culture has become a hustle, and we take what we can get.