Mountains of the Moon (2015 – 2016)
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…There having come, The Quest of El Dorado by Juan de Castellanos, mid-16th century
In a body of work entitled “Of Mountains of the Moon and Rafts of the Sea” I continue an on-going visual inquiry into the migration of economic refugees from far-flung African cities to Johannesburg. Simultaneously, I contrast the movement of a largely white and affluent group of South Africans away from the country of their birth to their perception of safer lives in the ‘West’. Using the pivotal symbol of the life raft, I directly and indirectly reference the perils of migration, whether this be over desert landscape, open sea, or by air. I contemplate what it may mean to embark on a journey of forced flight from what once was home to what, in essence, is no more than a perception of safe haven – the mythical El Dorado. In a drawing technique that is both individualistic and metaphorical, I burn car tyres and mix the crushed soot with oils to make a dense black ink. My drawing technique is circular in that the tyre-soot ink is used to express images of un-peopled landscapes – these in turn scored with tyre tracks – speaking to the after-traces of those who have travelled through them. But the car tyre is a loaded image in South Africa: aside from its enabling of movement from A to B, the toxic smoke rising from their burning for the recovery of the recyclable steel wire embedded in the rubber is a daily occurrence under the dingy overpasses near my studio. And, imbuing a further sense of unease, tyres will forever be associated with the necklacing practices of our sordid apartheid past – and more recently with the mob-killing of the Mozambican refugee Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave, burnt alive in an orgy of xenophobic violence in Ramaphosa squatter camp on Johannesburg’s East Rand on 18th May 2008. |
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Title: How long is a piece of string?
Date: 2015 Medium: Lead thread on paper Dimensions: 21 x 30cm |
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Title: All at Sea Date: 2015 Medium: Gold leaf, tyre soot and oil on paper Dimensions: 30 x 21cm
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Title: Escape from Eldorado I
Date: 2015 Medium: Gold leaf and tyre soot on paper Dimensions: 30 x 21cm |
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Title: To them living means not dying (Kgalema Motlanthe)
Date: 2015 Medium: Lead thread on paper Dimensions: 21 x 30cm |
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Title: Plan of the Raft of the Medusa: 15 only were saved 13 days after
Date: 2015 Medium: Lead ribbon on paper Dimensions: 30 x 21cm |
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Title: Tread II
Date: 2015 Medium: Tyre soot and oil on paper Dimensions: 83 x 60cm |
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Title: Land’s End
Date: 2015 Medium: Tyre soot and oil on paper Dimensions: 30 x 42cm |
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Title: And over the eons of time (Rachel Carsen)
Date: 2015 Medium: Steel cable on paper Dimensions: 21 x 30cm |
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Title: Cities of the Plain: Corner End & Kerk Streets, Johannesburg
Date: 2015 Medium: Tyre soot and oil on paper Dimensions: 80 x 60cm |
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Title: Drift
Date: 2016 Medium: Oils, gold-leaf and lead on paper Dimensions: 21 x 30cm |
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Title: Sleeps with the fishes I Date: 2016Medium: Digital print (produced in association with Leon Krige)Dimensions: 90 x 167cm |
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Title: Sleeps with the fishes II
Date: 2016 Medium: Beaten lead sheet and found wooden footstool Dimensions: 56 x 45 x 42cm |
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Title: Oceans of Cash
Date: 2016 Medium: Lead, decommissioned SA banknotes shredded for disposal Dimensions: 30 x 21cm |
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Title: Rogue (after Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa)
Date: 2015 Medium: Oil, nails, fish hooks & fishing lures on board Dimensions: 100 x 135cm |
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Title: Rogue (after Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa) (Detail)
Date: 2015 Medium: Oil, nails, fish hooks & fishing lures on board Dimensions: 100 x 135cm |