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.”
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.”
Born at the turn of the century, eighteen year old chocolate-ice-cream-eating and mom to seven cats, Jéad Stehr captures her reality through the photographic lens. In between working for a record label and the occasional episode of American Gods, the young artist explores social and gender issues through her practice of poetry and photography.
“At about the age of nine or ten I started writing stories and poems, things like that. I also started entering them in competitions.” Instead of putting the traditional pen to paper, “I like typing things”. She often stores an entire anthology on her cell phone. Initially writing down her stream of consciousness and then engaging in a rigorous editing process afterwards: carving out the words until a poem is fully formed.
Two years later, Jéad began her photography career after pocketing her dad’s camera. “After I took my dad’s camera…one of the videographers came down from I think Nigeria. He saw me playing around with the camera and he said ‘nah girl, you need to learn how to use this camera properly.’ So he like sat me down and gave me a whole day for the basics on how to shoot and change settings on this camera. Then I just felt so committed to it.”
Thematically, her work revolves around the notion of self-narration. “I focus a lot on the things going on around me. Majority of the work is a reflection of what has happened to me…A series I did called Femme looked at the duel sides of femininity. In masculinity there can be femininity – the two shouldn’t be separated from one another. It was a whole video project as well as a photo series…I painted the entire room pink, it was the first concept shoot I ever did. Like I stole cactuses from neighbours in the middle of the night – I wanted to create an image by filling the whole space.”
“That’s what I love doing, tying all the concepts to my own life.” Through this project and micro-residency she hopes to, “inspire other people to take the youth seriously and invest in local talent as well.”
Photography by Jéad Stehr
Untitled:
thank you for telling me what to feel.
who to be. what to do.
working together can be a learning experience. we both get what we want.
you need me to do a task i perform it. carry it through. create life from dry husks.
22-year-old illustrator Seth Pimentel, aka CAT FAP, sat casually in the winter morning sunlight resting his arms on his legs in the courtyard of One Eloff. His black Thrasher cap with its yellow logo greeted me before his eyes did. I sat down next to him and we discussed his art and vision for exhibition Future 76.
Marcia Elizabeth (ME): Could you tell me more about your background?
Seth Pimentel (SP): I was born and raised in Johannesburg. I started drawing when I was 6 and in school we had to draw 9/11. I drew the shittiest piece of art, the worst 6-year-old drawing you can imagine and my teacher actually liked it. She put it up amongst some of the best drawings in the class. From that day it all just made sense. I went to the National School of the Arts (NSA) when I was 14 and after that I went to Open Window Institute [a private higher education institution focusing on visual arts and digital sciences].
ME: How would you describe your art?
SP: I’m an illustrator and a visual artist. My art is weird. It’s a lot of dark stuff that comes from me. I’m not a dark person or anything. Sometimes it’s just great to tap into some kind of energy and create something from that. It’s just me being me. Expressing what I can, how I can.
ME: In thinking about Future 76, do you feel like it fits into the scheme of what the other artists are doing? How are you thinking about creating a visually appealing flow for the exhibition?
SP: I definitely think I could fit in with everyone that is exhibiting. We all kind of know each other. When you are friends with people it’s easy to pick up on their energies and adapt to their style, and they adapt to yours. I never usually plan when I work, so whatever happens, happens. It’s youth month, so I think I’m going to work keeping youth culture in mind.
ME: You were saying that you don’t really plan your work. Does your work fall under the idea of automatic drawing?
SP: It is automatic drawing. It’s like sitting down and saying to myself, ‘ok cool I’m going to doodle something starting with one side of a face’ and 5 or 6 hours later I’ve got a full illustration. Then I look at it and think, ‘Wow, where did that come from?’. I’m never aware of what’s happening. It always just ends up becoming something.
ME: Do you feel as though the art world is competitive?
SP: I was oblivious to the creative industry when I started illustrating. It is a dog eat dog industry. If you don’t meet the deadline someone else will, so you have to do your best. Everyone, no matter who you are, compares themselves to everybody else. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing because if you engage with yourself that’s great. You push yourself to do better. Making sure that you as an individual transcend the level that you are at now. I look at other people’s work and for me that’s inspirational.
ME: Tracking back to the National School of the Arts, do you think it shaped the direction you chose for your art practice?
SP: I did industrial design at NSA. I went in thinking I was going to draw my whole life. And in a way I did. I made a lot of linocuts and prints, but I made more furniture and design aesthetic stuff. At Open Window I did Game Design and in my first year I picked up a subject called illustration. From there I was hooked. NSA did help me a lot, even in the way that I communicate with people. We didn’t have cliques or gangs. Everyone was friends with everyone. Racism wasn’t really a thing at my school and everyone was free flowing. I started stretching my ears when I was 16. It was great and different.
ME: Do you have a specific colour scheme that you go back to?
SP: I kind of stuck with colour for a long time. Colour schemes become their own motif and their own style and identity. I’ve been using the same colour schemes now for the past month, these weird gradients of greens, reds and blues. I stick to a routine and try use the colour I find on Kuler. If I don’t like it I’ll change up the hue and saturation, and tweak it until I’m happy.
ME: Do you work with titles?
SP: Sometimes the titles just come to me, but sometimes I have to force a title out because it’s something that someone wants to buy or it’s for an exhibition. 90% of my works are untitled.
ME: Do you try and create meaning in your work?
SP: I stray completely away from meaning. Sometimes it’s great for me because people make their own meaning. I had an illustration that someone else titled “Submerge, Emerge”. It’s a face that’s drowning in water.
ME: Are there any specific artists who influence your work?
SP: There are hundreds of artists I look up to. A lot of digital artists, and a lot of traditional artists. Sachin Theng, an illustrator, Natalie Foss, John-Michel Basquiat. A lot of local people as well like my friend Dylan Hartland and Elio the Illustrator. It’s a broad spectrum of people that I know and people that I don’t know.
ME: Has social media provided a platform for you to be recognized?
SP: It has, for a while I didn’t like it and then I realized that it helps. If you freelance it creates a space where you can be commissioned from. You kill two birds with one stone and you can survive in this really tough city doing what you love. I’m low key on social media but I love what it’s doing and where it’s taking a lot of people.
ME: Have you been involved with an exhibition before?
SP: Yeah I have. I had an exhibition with Imile Wepener and a bunch of other great illustrators like Shaun Hill. I’ve had two live paintings, one at the Johannesburg Hive and one at Joziburg Lane.
ME: Do you feel like you are a good representative of Johannesburg youth?
SP: Everyone in Johannesburg is so vastly different. I’d like to think that I am a fair representative of the skater, punk, hip hop and street culture scenes. I am a catalyst of all of these smaller subcultures in Johannesburg, so am I a fair representative to a certain extent.
Cahil Sankar has gained popularity with his vivid motion blurring band photography. Sankar shoots interchangeably between digital and analog, and has a particular fondness for Fujifilm. “I think I just picked up my dad’s old camera when I was super young and just never stopped taking photos,” he explained when asked about where his interest in photography came from. As one of the artists selected to exhibit in the AUTONOMY WAVEFuture 76 exhibition, I had a conversation with him about his work.
Marcia Elizabeth (ME): How do you like to describe your art? Which photography style do your images fall under?
Cahil Sankar (CS): I would describe my art as a way of documenting narratives that aren’t told. I would classify my photography as more documentary photography than anything else.
ME: What is your background? Where did you grow up? What are you currently doing? Are you working on any current projects?
CS: I grew up in JHB and went to school at St David’s. I am currently studying creative brand communications at Vega, specializing in multimedia design. I think my photography has always been an ongoing work. I do not necessarily work on specific projects but my work is just a culmination of images. And I think my photography definitely influences what my designs look like.
ME: Who are the people that you photographed?
CS: I worked quite a bit with bands. I have worked with the Tazers, Soul Gems and The Moths. I work with them a lot and the rest is just random people that you see on the streets.
ME: In a lot of your band photography you play around with shutter speed. Is that something you conceptualize or is it something that just happened and became a thing?
CS: I think it happened because I refused to use a flash in my band photography. I use natural light. I played with how low you can take your shutter speed while still getting a clear image. When you push that you get movement. So it stemmed from not using a flash.
ME: What are your views on Future 76 and the artists that are exhibiting? Do you know some of the other artists you will be working with?
CS: The project itself is such an awesome platform. It is great to be working with Bubblegum Club and I am privileged to be working with some of the best young artists in Johannesburg. I am just so happy to be working with everyone. If I’ve not met them, I have seen most of them online. We are all a part of the same circle.
Do you think that your art will work well with the other artists exhibiting?
CS: It will be a challenge to get it to mesh with the other art forms. My approach is to document and not really to create. I think once we get it to work together it will be pretty cool.
ME: In this month will you be focusing mainly on photography or are you going to bring in other elements of your creativity?
CS: I think I will be focusing mainly on photography but different to what I normally do because I will be collaborating with the other artists and try to merge the different styles of art.
ME: What is the future vision you have for your art?
CS: I am hesitant to pursue photography as a career because I fear falling into the trap of spending my life shooting weddings or commercial photography. I looked at other creative fields and came across multimedia design and fell in love. I will always do photography but it won’t be my main source of income.
ME: I was having a look at your work on Instagram and came across a project where you took some images in a butchery. I found that very interesting. Can you tell me more about this project?
CS: The project started as an assignment from Vega. The assignment was to go into a space that makes you feel uncomfortable or a space that you didn’t really ever interact with. We went to a Halaal butchery in Mayfair to see what it was all about. We were also attempting to remove some of the stigma around Halaal meat. We documented everything that happens behind the counters. What happens behind the counters; to show what people don’t see.
ME: Do you think that you have a visual signature?
CS: I think over the past 3 years my photography has changed a lot. I went from shooting a lot of black and white to shooting super high contrast colour. In the last few months I have settled on shooting low saturation colour. I think you will be able to tell from my perspective or what I am shooting that it is me. But I am not sure that you will be able to tell specifically from the look of the image that it is mine. So you are getting the same perspective, it is just the style has changed.
ME: Are you trying to convey any kind of message with what you are doing?
CS: I feel like my work is quite subjective. Depending on who looks at it they will see a differently story or feel a different emotion. I don’t need my work to have a meaning. I feel like the viewer will make a meaning. It depends on what I am shooting though. With the project where I was shooting at the butchery there was a clear narrative behind all the images. But if I am shooting band photography I am just trying to capture the emotion.
ME: Would you say that you have found your voice as a visual artist?
CS: I would say I have found a voice, not my voice yet. I have been able to tell certain narratives but there is also stuff that I wouldn’t be comfortable putting out there yet. Just because of the social climate in our country you can’t just say whatever you want to say.
ME: Do you feel like you and your work are a fair representation of South African youth?
CS: No. My work is a very narrow view of South African youth. I’m from a privileged background so you are not going to see what the majority of South African youth is actually like. You are getting my perspective not an overall perspective of South Africa.
ME: Are there specific issues that your generation is faced with that are not voiced? And if so would you attempt to voice them during the Future 76 exhibition?
CS: I think there is a lot that is not spoken about, a lot that is pushed under the carpet. I think if I find the right mode of talking about it then I will.
The exhibition Future 76 under AUTONOMY WAVE will take place on the 30th of June. We would like to introduce the artists who will be collaborating for this exhibition.
Jéad Stehr @mistehrjead
“I borrowed my dad’s camera one day when I was 12, promising to return it after I took a few shots, and to this day I still haven’t brought it back to him. At first, it was arbitrary subjects, like clouds or a pipe that looked interesting, but as I started to fall more in love with working with the camera, the more I loved coming up with concepts and being able to relay the idea through the camera. I loved the ability to communicate an idea to someone that would be indescribable otherwise. The act of transferring your thoughts to another person. It’s a way of changing beliefs and opinions.
Generally, I write long pieces or poems to accompany my work. Sort of like a description trying to capture the essence of the photo. Sometimes the poem inspires the photo, and other times I scramble for words to bring meaning to my work. I like subverting the viewer’s intentions and serving up ideas and ideals that make a viewer think. A lot of the time I like to work with models of colour because I’m very passionate about creating a safe space for POC. Where they can look at a piece and relate to it themselves, which is something we don’t get to do often in the media.
I really like the idea of this project. Giving the youth a platform to exhibit themselves is so important in a country where funding for the arts is lacking and we are in dire need of fresh creative talent. The broader theme of self-narration in relation to the city is also quite perfect for me. We are going through a time, not only in Johannesburg, but South Africa as a whole, where hate is running rampant, and I think this project could be used to bring a mirror to the behavior and actions we are constantly being bombarded with via the media.”
Doodle by Jéad Stehr
Seth Pimentel @african_ginger
“My name is Seth Pimentel.
I’m a 22 year old illustrator and visual artist.
I was born and raised in the city of gold, Johannesburg.
My art comes from a side of me I don’t like. It stems from my own self deprecating thoughts. Sometimes your greatest motivation is your own self hatred. I know that’s rather macabre, but sometimes pain is the greatest catalyst of growth. I illustrate, so I draw whatever I feel and whatever I think flows from me. It’s in itself is my own therapy.
I’m a young artist in my city; I fall into the category of the youth. This is our month, and this is our opportunity to create together. We learn and love from our collective creativity shared.”
Doodle by Seth Pimentel
Cahil Sankar @cahil
“My Name is Cahil Sankar, and I’m a 19 year old Photographer from Johannesburg. I started taking photos from a very young age, and found that it was one of the few things I could not stop doing. Having severe ADHD, I was surprised at how something as simple as picking up an old point and shoot camera, could suddenly quieten my mind. Photography allowed me a stillness that I hadn’t ever experienced before.
My mom worked for the ANC’s intelligence structures during the Apartheid era, and I feel that that has strongly influenced my political ideas as well as the images I am drawn to capture. Through my photography, I aim to hopefully, portray honest and vulnerable narratives and emotions of my subject matter. I feel that being able to observe other peoples’ stories, has allowed me to shape my own narrative as a person of colour in our society. Having the creative freedom to interact with so many different people, I have come to realise how important creativity and the arts are, in terms of youth self-empowerment.
South Africa has a large number of talented youth, and because of this I feel incredibly privileged to have been given this opportunity to work in collaboration with some brilliant young artists. Thank you Bubblegum Club.”
Doodle by Cahil Sankar
Mariam Petros @disorganizedgoat
Mariam Ekaterini Petros, born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Inspired by artists like Tretchikoff, Kahlo and Dali. Petros is on the path of discovering her individual style. She works predominately with ink but practices with a variety of mediums. She attended the National School of the Arts. Petros participated in the Youth Arts Massif Exhibition in 2016 at the King Kong Building in Johannesburg. Petros is currently a tattoo apprentice at the Emerald Rain Tattoo Parlor and is studying Printmaking at The Artist Proof Studio.
“I’m drawn to the project in a sense that I find it difficult to display my art on platforms other than on social media, with a disadvantage of being a part of the youth art culture, this project forms an opportunity that creates a platform for youth artists. I’m especially interested in this project in particular as it is based in the CBD which I’ve grown up in and have always had a love/hate relationship with. I’m looking forward to exploring the different tasks that come with this project and being able to collaborate with fellow young artists.”
Doodle by Mariam Petros
Abi & Claire Meekel @meek.meekier.meekest
“The Meëk journey began 2 years ago. Meek is ultimately a movement and a social experiment to see how many people will follow and be inspired by what Meëk does. We love working together with other artists to expand this movement. It will be interesting to see how meek can collaborate with some of the artists in the Bubblegum project.
I’m eager to use the given space as a medium to expand Meëk as a sort of progressive installation. This meaning that both Claire and I have discussed that we will do several illustrations, paintings, prints, small sculptures that merge into the space, so that it becomes a small little world that the viewers can partake in. We will definitely photograph and document our progress on social media so that our audience can grasp our context and creative process. The idea is that we inspire youth to create their own art. Show people that we are young artists ready to create and speak to the world, and that we are not confined by the existing art world. There aren’t limitations; we are in an infinite dimension.
A little bit about Meëk:
We have a list of mediums we work with some of which include animation, illustration, film, embroidery, sculptures, installations, design, graffiti, fashion and painting. It is interesting to work with different mediums because it also allows us to explore and progress. A valuable concept in the existence of Meëk is that it travels through different forms and dimensions which embodies the main concept. Meëk is our left foot. It’s a part of us but it isn’t everything. It is not who we individually are as artists. Meek simply is; a collaboration, a part of the two of us. We still have a few more worlds to show you.
Sound and Photography are important mediums that I often experiment with but I mostly work with these mediums outside of Meëk, individually.”
