Biography
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
The artist examines his sense of lost ‘African’ identity as a ‘White’ South African in the diaspora, while retaining an abiding affinity with a cultural heritage unique to the region.
Dormant but enduring issues resonate in this work – an unavoidable dynamic, given apartheid era racial tensions - as if looking at recent history through the wrong end of a telescope - having lived through the dark years of ‘Apartheid’, and, despite being vehemently opposed to the regime and its racial policies he is, by dint of being white, perceived to be one the white oppressors..
Memory, trauma, questions, both answered and unanswered result in catharsis, informing the artist, and the narrative resident within this work of a gross moral blamelessness.
Pursuing an unrestricted interdisciplinary approach to art production, the artist interposes traditional ‘African’ woodcarving, metal fabrication, welding, and acrylic molding to achieve sculptural forms that recall; African ceremonial masks and medieval armour – coverings that conceal and protect the identity of the wearer – literally and metaphorically. Nevertheless, this “permeable” protective metal sheath provides scant protection, leaving the inner being vulnerable
This body of work represents a cathartic, visual narrative addressing personal issues heretofore avoided by the artist as being too painful to confront.
‘Whites in Shining Armour’ and ‘Mond Vol Tande’ are both visual narrative representations of “not speaking out” against racial inequity and prejudice.
“The narrative constructs the identity of the character, what can be called his or her narrative identity, in constructing that of the story told. It is the identity of the story that makes the identity of the character” Paul Ricoeur
