Tag: Boipelo Khunou

  • Kristina Nichol’s extraterrestrial visual palate

    Kristina Nichol’s extraterrestrial visual palate

    Symbolism channelling various forms of energy and making cosmological references. An extraterrestrial visual palate. This is what defines the work of makeup artist Kristina Nichol.

    Describing herself as an alien, Kristina uses her own face and body, as well as those of models, as blank canvases for her out of this world looks. In our interview, she unpacks how her work is primarily inspired by emotion. “I use this to fuel my creativity,” Kristina explains, “I see and feel in colour. To me this is necessary as a makeup artist because I’m constantly coming into contact with humans and needing to transform/translate their energy as I paint their face.”

    Fascinated with makeup and reworking the parameters of beauty, her practice actively unhinges the structures that dictate the purpose of makeup and the conventions for its application. This is directly communicated with her hashtags and professional Instagram account displaying the words ‘UNCONVENTIONAL BEAUTY’. Wild brush strokes, bleeding foreheads, and brightly coloured blush that is massaged into clouds on the skin. Gold shimmering eyebrows, and pink eyelashes. Models are injected with an alien glow.

    For Kristina, presenting alternative and varied forms of beauty is a necessity. “I think it’s important because it makes people think. It’s not the norm, and as a makeup artist it’s important to use it as a tool to provoke and challenge the superficial mainstream ideals of beauty that we’re constantly held up against.” Having collaborated with recent Future 76 artist Boipelo Khunou, on a project titled ‘Subtle Care’, we see how this approach applies in an artistic manner. With shapes and colours being at the centre of the looks. Recently Kristina also took on the role of makeup artist for the latest Bubblegum Club cover, ‘Turn Up The Volume and Queer the dancefloor‘. This demonstrates Kristina’s versatility, while still keeping her signature touch recognizable.

    “I feel like we’re constantly transforming, and changing. Life is a difficult experience, but I learn more with time how to find peace in myself, and this peace has allowed me to accept myself and accept how I see and do things.” With this in mind, Kristina is working on a series that deals with the human experience and will be collaborating with a writer (who will also be the model) as well as a young photographer. “I’m so excited for this series. it’s the biggest personal project I’ve worked on so far, big big things.”

    To keep up with Kristina’s work follow her on Instagram.

    “Beauty already exists within us. Don’t chase it, embrace it.”

  • Future 76 // In dealing with the colonial wound

    Future 76 // In dealing with the colonial wound

    Coloniality describes the hidden process of erasure, devaluation, and disavowing of certain human beings, ways of thinking, ways of living, and of doing in the world – that is, coloniality as a process of inventing identifications – then for identification to be decolonial it needs to be articulated as “des-identification” and “re-identification, which means it is a process of delinking

    This statement by Walter Mignolo during a 2014 interview with Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández describes the pervasive nature of coloniality. Certain parallels can be drawn between the tragic events of June 16th, 1976 and the recent Fallist Movement. These historical moments have enacted  ruptures of resistance. Recognizing moments of erasure is crucial to redefining historical narratives and addressing systemic disparities of power. However, ‘the voice’ of youth is not merely a homogenized entity. Issues of representation require a nuanced and considered approach – allowing passage to spaces that have been previously inaccessible. Within the context of contemporary art in South Africa, opportunities for self-representation and exploration are often scarce.

    It is in response to this, that Bubblegum Club has created an annual micro-residency to cultivate the talent of young artists. A group of four womxn have been selected for this years programme – to participate in a series of workshops, close conversation and ultimately exhibit a new body of work at the end of June. The programme has been conceptually framed around decolonial options – to tentatively consider and critique this notion beyond the buzzword.

    Jemma Rose, a self-identified visual activist and Gemini, uses her camera to capture daily realities. She also uses it as a mutual point of contact –  a device to generate encounters with people. Photographic work is in part a family tradition, it has always had an element of familiarity to it, as both her father and grandfather have engaged with the medium.

    Through her work she often works with themes of queerness and queer identity as well as drawing attention to mental health issues. Jemma notes that there are some performative qualities to her photographic work and usually focuses on using her images to convey a message relevant to her experiences. She is interested in locating herself and her work within a larger context based on her personal subjectivities.

    “I initially thought of ‘decolonisation’ in relation to breaking things down. I’m starting to realize that it’s much more than that. There are so many things behind it that you have to unravel…masculinity, heteronormativity and sexism are also all part of it. You need to slowly start unraveling it so that you can see the bigger picture.”

    This sentiment echoed by Mignolo “Patriarchy and racism are two pillars of Eurocentric knowing, sensing, and believing. These pillars sustain a structure of knowledge.” (2014). Thus through untangling the history of colonization, racisim and the patriarchy must also be addressed.

    Boipelo Khunou is currently in her final year of Fine Arts at Wits. “It’s been an interesting journey trying to find out what this so-called-fine-art-world is – what it means to be making art and making work.” This process can often be dissolusioning, especially once you realise how the elements of capital and nepotism are entertwined in the system.

    As a multi-diciplinary artist, Boipelo focuses her practice on photography, print and digital media. Thematically she works through ideas of personal power. “I use to reflect about the things that I experience. Experience is one of the most important parts of my work.” Through her work she investigates the kinds of spaces it is possible to find and claim power. She describes how oftentimes it’s within the walls of the institution that power is forcibly relinquished and autonomy is lost.

    “I didn’t know anything about decolonization until Fees Must Fall.” During the movement, the concept gained an immense amount of traction. Pedigogical systems and western epistemology within the university and beyond were challenged. “After the protests, so many people I know went through this weird depression because they realized that institutions have so much power, but what does that mean for people who want to dedicate their lives to decolonial practices?.”

    “The interesting thing is to actually see how you can put decolonization into practice. You can do all the readings, go to the talks, go to all these places that advocate for it, but what does it mean to practice it every day? I think that it is a very complex thing, it’s something that challenges me. You realise that there are so many aspects of your being and how you operate in life that you need to figure out how to prevent institutions and conditioned ideas to creep back into your life – it’s a constant battle.”

    Natalie Paneng is a 21-year-old artist and student. Her background in set design gives her a unique application of her use of space. Her work is often located virtually as she explores what it means to engage with the internet as a black womxn. The mode in which she does this is often through the use of alter egos. Hello Nice is a character she created on youtube and utilizes the ‘vape wave’ aesthetic.

    Recently Natalie created a zine called Internet Babies, it chronicals the profiles of five girls: TrendyToffy @107_, Black Linux otherwise known as the Mother of Malware, Silverlining CPU, Fuchsia Raspberry Pi and Coco Techno Butter. It explores their relationship to digital space and how they’re the “fiber of the internet.”

    She decribes how, “trying to find myself is like the decolonization of myself. Learning how to push those boundries and be more radical as well as owning the need for decolonization and acknowledging that it’s going to have to start with me.”

    Tash Brown is a young painter who approaches the concept of White Suburbia as well as investigating her place and participation within that space. While working through the lens of decolonization she describes how “white suburbia becomes a distortion of reality”, one which is also often still racially segregated. Her distorted paintings are often a grotesque depiction of the suburbs.

    As a white artist, she is critical of her own voice. Noting that, “it’s a time and a space in South Africa where black artists should be prioritized. So I guess I’ve struggled to find myself relevance in the art world, but through the critique of my own cultural issues and the problematics is a way that I can approach it, without having my voice crowding out other voices.”

    Credits:

    Photography & Styling: Jamal Nxedlana

    Makeup: Orli Meiri

    Photography and styling assistant: Lebogang Ramfate
  • Pussy on a Plinth // elevating the personal as political through paper-based prints and zines

    Hearing about young, womxn-only collectives in Johannesburg is always a moment of excitement and encouragement for me. It speaks to the importance of collaborative work as well as the necessity for womxn to provide creative and emotional support to one another when learning to navigate art spaces in the city. Pussy On A Plinth (POP) is one such collective. The collective includes the artists Yolanda Mtombeni, Boipelo Khunou, Lebogang “Mogul” Mabusela, Allyssa Herman, Cheriese Maharaj, Lara Bekker, Zinhle E. Gule, Penny Muduvhadzi, Nthabeleng Masudubele, Didi Allie and Janine Bezuidenhout.

    When asked about where the name for the collective came from, they shared that it emerged out of conversations about an image from a nude shoot that involved two of the members. “In one of these images, one of them was seated on a plinth. That is when we began discussions around what that image could possibly mean.” Wanting to unpack this further, I asked about what kind of ideological weight they are hoping their name will have, particularly when combined with their creative practice.

    “The name attempts to disrupt the patriarchal structures both in society and the white cube gallery spaces. Putting a pussy on a plinth speaks of uplifting, bringing attention to, as well as monumentalizing the work of womxn artists. ‘Pussy’ in this instance, is used as a reclamation of power by attempting to normalize the use and essence of the word as a term that is not derogatory or belittling.”

    Since the inception of POP their work has manifest in the form of paper-based prints and zines. These are often guided by reflections on their experiences and thoughts as womxn. “Our work is interrogative, illustrative, engaging for the public and thought provoking,” they express.

    The most recent display of their work was at the Lephephe print gathering towards the end of 2017, which was hosted and organized by Keleketla Library! in collaboration with the collective Title in Transgression. For this they created an image-focused zine to introduce  POP and its members. In addition to this they hosted a zine workshop that zoomed in on the question ‘What is your personal politics?’ Reflecting on this, they shared that “the experience was inspiring and affirming; [it allowed us to] communicate our processes, thoughts as well as our goals with the public and other artists in the space as a collective.

    The work of the collective and of each member ties into the ideas shared by the 70s feminist slogan ‘The personal is political’ which was adopted from Carol Hanisch’s essay by the same name. Individually, under this larger umbrella, they each have specific areas of focus, which sometimes overlap. These include patriarchal culture, post-colonial or gendered culture; the gaze, human consumption, black womxnhood and its experiences; mental health and associated topics; as well as the effects of post-colonial, patriarchal and gendered cultures. When listing these themes, it is quite easy to see how their collective has become an extension of their individual thematic foci.

    When asked about what they have in the works for 2018, they shared that, “We are working on hosting more zine jams at various spots in Johannesburg where people can engage and contribute to the zine archive that has started building up. There is also a plan to have a womxn takeover at the DGI studio as a type of physical alteration of the male-dominated space. The result of this will be a print show which we have been organizing for a while now.  The prints we will be producing will mostly consist of relief prints, ‘relief’ being in the form of printmaking, but also as a literal form of relief for us as womxn, as a collective and as individuals.”

    POP hopes to continue to grow as a collective by getting involved in work and art spaces beyond paper-based prints and zines. To keep up with their growth and the possibility of new artistic directions, check them out on Instagram.