 |
|
 |
||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||
 Title: Medium: Oil on board. Size:  Title: Medium: Oil on board. Size: Most of the works for this exhibition draw on aspects of the artist’s childhood in Mozambique in the 1960-70’s, from the family photographic archive. The Family Laager Series refers to a later period, in South Africa. This body of work, by selection of information from photographs, focuses on family dynamics with their hidden stories and secrets within an intimate unit, and the notion of families as clans within tribes. In the photograph from which ‘Family Laager – With Their Backs To the World’ draws, it is plain that the players are looking over their shoulders at the photographer and that the empty chair has just been vacated by him. However, in the painting, the act of looking over the shoulder embodies the perceived vulnerability of the white South African family, wary of and closed to impending change. The wall implied by the structures of the garden furniture between themselves and the inevitable future echoes this act of cutting oneself off from the world. The title ‘Laager’ refers to the notion of family clan as an insular circle. There is ambivalence between the lush setting and rich colors of dusk, and an impending event. The idyllic environment bellies a strange disquiet, or unease. Dusk is that fleeting moment when light and color become painfully extravagant and one experiences a sense of loss with its passing. Light sources are multiple, ambiguous and suggestive, within which figures dissolve or become strongly defined. The strong contrast between light and dark becomes pivotal to the internal drama, as does the contrast between sharp edge and dissolving contours. Nothing is explicit within these paintings and their narrative remains nascent despite the clarity or sharpness of the image. These paintings are derived from 5,4cm/5,4cm black and white photographs of the artist’s childhood in Mozambique. They represent and interpret aspects of growing up in a colonial period. The figures stare at the viewer with the deadpan gaze encountered in all photo albums where the subject is conscious of the photographer. The voyeuristic act of entering unknown villages on our travels in Mozambique, and the open curiosity at such encounters, are transferred to the viewer of the paintings. Title: The lost weekend (2000) Medium: Oil on canvas Size: |
 |
 |
|
| Site Map |