A human body lies covered in what appears to be thick, solid pieces of cutout paper. The body is fully covered; barring from the knee down. The image has all the components that engender a sense of familiarity. However, something is off. One of the legs is twisted and both are lifted —suggesting that the body underneath is still breathing. This photograph (Laid, 2011) by artist Sam Vernon seems to say something significant and fateful about the body (particularly the black body) and its presence in the world.…it breathes intrigue into our imagination.
Vernon is a multi and interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the connection between memory, personal narrative and identity. “Through site-specific, staged installations and urgent performances my goals are towards the production of Gothic visual art in which Black narratives are included in the expanse of the genre,” Vernon states in an interview with African Digital Art.
Vernon goes beyond the confines of a single medium by combining drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptural components— transmuting their form from two dimensional to three dimensional works which become elastic and nonconforming. Her means of expression are constantly evolving as she continuously moves from illustrations, digital, performance and back.
Vernon’s digital prints, drawings and collages are typically black and white, perhaps an indication of an enhanced awareness of the past. The work is not always easy to process, and yet it remains vivid and clear. Through Vernon’s works, we travel through time towards the vast depth of her experiences. She describes an understanding of the past as a necessary means towards a better understanding of the self in the creation of the future.
Despite having a visual language that is difficult to pin down —with elements of abstraction, patterns and human-like figures —Vernon’s voice remains strong. This voice is further amplified by the specificity in the symbolism used to confront her subjects. “The active ‘ghosting‘ of an image, copying and multiplying the original, subtlety exploits the notion of a pure identification of black and white and signifies the essentialism of symbolic meaning and all its associations.”
Through her practice Vernon deconstructs and redefines narratives that inform memories and collective history through the lens of race and gender. Through her most recent show Rage Wave with G44: Centre for Contemporary Photography in Toronto, Vernon presented an ambitious exhibition bringing together images, photocopies, drawings and prints to reflect on post-coloniality, racial, sexual and historic memory. She has also presented works at Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Seattle Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts in Brooklyn, among many others.
Vernon’s work, with all its layers of complexity, remain a critical part of moving the conversation on black narratives forward. Her works have a sense of timelessness, where the past and the present seem to merge….perhaps because notions and conceptions of race and gender underpinning the work also have a sense of timelessness. Even as time passes, the trauma of the violent past continues to haunt.
So what is Surrealism and what is Expressionism in art? Surrealism was defined by André Bretonin the Surrealist manifesto of 1924 as “Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation.” Surrealism focuses thus on an intuitive processes of creation not meant to be an accurate depiction of the world and is not concerned with what is regarded as beautiful but is centred around the functioning of thought. Surrealism often relies on alternative realities and dreams, and the psychoanalytic. Expressionism can be explained as follows, “Expressionist artists tried to express meaning or emotional experience rather than physical reality. The artists manipulated their subjects’ appearance to express what cannot be easily seen.” Here I look at three South African femme artists who might fall into these classifications. I discuss why they might fall into these classifications, as well as whether these classifications are still of relevance today.
Marlene Steyn is a Capetonian artist who obtained her Master of Fine Art degree in 2014 in London from the Royal College of Art. Her immersive installation focused work creates an experience nurturing an eagerness for her constructed surreal worlds. Her idiosyncratic motifs morph through unnerving established notions surrounding themes such as historical art narratives, psychoanalytic theory and popular tokens from modern culture. With repetition and irregular combinations, Marlene creates eerie themes surrounding her work. Her symbolic visual language consisting of fried eggs, braided ropes of hair and the androgynous figure, molds into one as the key element of her practice.
Marlene has a peculiar ability to make violence playful in her work. When looking purely at the visual aspects of her art it can be described as disjointed body parts, animated features separated from faces, frying pans, fragments and distortions. The human body is depicted in her work as vulnerable, nude and disfigured with a strange beauty. This body represented in her surreal world seems to be provoked by various objects and sinister beasts. At the same time the work evokes a sense of happiness.
‘Aura hour with cucumber’ 2016 by Marlene Steyn
Some examples of pieces that display these mutilated bodies is ‘Ponytails Continued’ – a set of legs without a torso and a floating head with no neck as well as ‘In My other half’s other half’ – a single large blue eye skewered through a large sculpture peering up at the eyebrow above.
Marlene’s work can be considered to be surrealist in nature as she works with symbolism, a dreamlike, constructed reality and is concerned with psychoanalytic theory.
The next femme artist that falls into my list is Tash Brown. Tash is a Johannesburg-based painter who is currently completing her studies at WITS. I had an interview with her to see where she fits into the framework.
Tash expresses that her work can be regarded as surreal but that it is her reality. She prefers not to have her work tied down to a specific classification. Her preference is to let other people interpret her paintings, “A classmate once looked at a piece of mine and said it felt like a man had just killed someone but that was okay because his mom made him feel like it wasn’t his fault. I find that statement far richer than I could ever find my paintings.”
Tash has been known to venture from the traditional canvas to Perspex. Her colour pallet consists of pastels with exaggerated use of yellow and pink, “it is easy to turn them from something little-girl-pretty into vomit and vagina skin.”
‘Everything you’re not supposed to be’ 2017 by Tash Brown
As subject matter these grotesque haunting figures represent the artists, her lover, her family, her celebrity crushes and her dog. It is both strange and interesting that Tash would consciously choose to portray her loved ones (except for the dog, he always looks good) with such harshness. Tash’s surreal world is frightening, I dare say, but at the same time it depends on how you look at it. Tash doesn’t care if you believe that her work is self-indulgent trash. She doesn’t make work as a social commentary and in fact seems to just make art for herself instead of having some deeper meaning in mind.
Tash explains that the titles of her works come to her in the sense of automatic writing, when she finishes a painting she writes down whatever comes to mind. “I want the titles to be as vague as the works.”
When asked about the voyeuristic tone of her work Tash expresses that she couldn’t help but add a bizarre sexual undertone to her paintings. She believes that it explains why her work has a tendency to make people feel uncomfortable, yet fascinated. “I like to change a boy into a girl and cut off their lips and put it on a spoon and make the spoon have sex with a sardine and then force people to face it like maybe that is a spoon having sex with sardine, but maybe I like it.”
Her favourite work, ‘Everything you’re not supposed to be’, belongs to a larger series that was derived from screenshots of films she admires. “On the day it was painted I had just finished watching Tom at the Farm, a strange French sexual thriller. This painting is Tom and it’s also me watching Tom.”
‘Afterward, I’m going to have you all in tears’ 2017 by Tash Brown
Despite the fact that Tash doesn’t like to classify her work it is evident that it has surreal as well as expressionist tendencies. Surrealism can be seen as she creates an alternative warped reality with haunting figures and her work flows rather automatically. As was often associated with the Surrealist movement, Tash explains her work in a peculiar nonsensical manner, yet another characteristic. Her work leans to expressionism as she is clearly depicting a certain emotional and psychological state within her works.
Our last femme under the magnifying glass is Johannesburg artist Yolanda Mazwana, whose paintings depict the everyday, human elements in her life. Yolanda has confirmed that neo-expressionism is an influence for her raw, enthralling portraits.
Yolanda’s work is centered around mental illness, popular culture, phobias, relationships and storytelling. The figures in her work are sometimes disjointed as you can see a bodiless head floating in one of her paintings. It is clear to me that Yolanda has an interest in capturing the emotional states of her subjects in her work and that her work is not an accurate depiction of reality. Instead, appearances have been altered to show what cannot be seen with the naked eye.
Artwork by Yolanda Mazwana
Marlene, Tash and Yolanda’s work all share the common trait of either broken up human bodies or strange hybrid human forms. Marlene and Tash’s work are centered around an alternate reality. Marlene’s work is the closest to surrealism to me as she often makes use of symbolism in her work. All three these artists share very similar colour pallets in their work and are not interested in giving an accurate depiction of the world. Tash and Yolanda are both interested in the psychological states of their subjects. Tash’s work could be considered to fall in between both surrealism and expressionism, while Yolanda’s work is much more expressionist. Are these classifications important however? Perhaps. Perhaps not. As both Surrealism and Expressionism are definitely not practiced as it was intended with their formations. People sometimes refer to neo-surrealism and neo-expressionism now. I do however feel like we are living in a time where artists no longer feel a need to be bound to a specific classification and choose to work more freely.
In Bloom is Ja.’s first exhibition held at the KZNSA Gallery. The exhibition features 11 South African artists but what differentiates it from the traditional exhibition is that each featured artist’s work received a personalized backdrop. I spoke to the curators for the exhibition, Niamh Walsh-Vorster, Youlendree Appasamy and Dave Mann to find out more about the featured artists, their curatorial strategy for the exhibition as well as the work on display
The team tells me that the exhibition came about after their launch of their free studio and workshop space within The Green Camp Gallery. After this launch, they joked about doing an exhibition that became a serious goal for them and was met with the generous sharing of space and resources provided by the KZNSA gallery. They continue to tell me that they decided to pursue the idea to have their first exhibition, as they wanted to move from an URL space to an irl space.
Expressing that there is no overarching concept for the exhibition the team explains that the works featured celebrate a variety of art forms such as poetry, short stories, paintings, illustrations, films, photography, and graffiti. Having read the artists’ statements, however, I feel like there is a definite link to artists creating work that speak about topics such as sexism, identity as well as mental health.
‘Fantasma’ by Hannah Shone
This is illustrated for example when looking at the artist’s statement by Nosipho Nxele where she explains her work ‘Shared Greatness’ as follows, “The greatest threat to women and by extension humanity is the growth and acceptance of male chauvinistic, illiberal and brutal culture of hawkishness. This system then requires that women raise up their voices to empower themselves and those without any voice to fight against society’s systems that belittle women. Meaning we are greater together than apart. My inspiration [for the piece] was drawn from the great saying of Pakistani activist for female education, Malala Yousafzai: ‘I raise up my voice – not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard. We cannot succeed when half of us are held back’. The illustration embodies the spirit and passion of Mahala.” This statement speaks not only of sexism but feminine identity as well as solidarity among women.
The team tell me that the title of the exhibition ‘In Bloom’ was chosen as the artists’ work in the exhibition represents an exploration and engagement with one’s identity. “Coming into bloom is a difficult act but the bloom itself is a beautiful thing. Even though some of the work unpacks uncomfortable themes it’s through the experiences of young artists who are finding imaginative ways of expression.” The title is also a reflection of the opening during spring, a time that flowers are in bloom.
Artists for the exhibition were selected by medium and geographic region as an attempt to showcase work that was as far reaching as possible by means of concept and geographical location of the artists.
‘Blazers’ by Shalom Mushwana
When asked about the curatorial strategy that was followed for this exhibition they explain that the exhibition features both written and visual work and expresses that finding a way to situate literature within a conventionally visual space was a fun challenge for them. They continue to explain that written works were incorporated in the form of postcards, small zines, a poem draped down a stairway entrance of the Mezzanine and film-based work created by the guest visual editor, Mandisa Buthelezi.
Focussing on various points of entry and layouts for visual works they experimented with placement for the works that fell under this category. With the help of graffiti artist, Kev Sevin backdrops were painted for each artist’s work allowing them to come into their own as distinct clusters the team expresses. This strategy alone lends a different element to the ‘In Bloom’ exhibition and aids in tying the work rather seamlessly.
The team express their hopes for ‘In Bloom’ as follows, “We hope that it contributes to the careers of the artists involved, as well as inspires more artists to create new work. And also, to show that it’s possible to pull off an exhibition on a shoestring budget that’s successful and engaging without the usual white cube nonsense.”
