The title of the KRAS video ‘Coloured Lights’ is warmly inviting, suggesting an optimistic pop banger. Instead, you are given a much more discomforting, and ultimately rewarding experience, in the debut music video by the Cape Town based duo. Over a pulverizing synthesizer and vocals distorted to epic levels, a disturbingly masked figure twists and cavorts through abandoned nocturnal city streets. As the song builds to a relentless climax, it intercuts between shots of other faceless people engaged in some unnameable occult ritual and beautiful black and white ocean shots, with the same masked figure emerging like some toxic Venus from the sea spray.
This stunning combination of sonics and visuals is the work of partners Brandon and Duncan, whose vision for KRAS is to release songs with beautifully curated accompanying videos, each new work bringing in other producers and filmmakers to collaborate. In this case, the pummelling imagery was filmed by Lauren Rose with elegant outfits designed by Tzvi Karp.
As Brandon told me via email, the group wants to avoid making work that is too obvious, preferring to let the audience read their own experiences into their creations. But he did note that the haunted, occultist vibe of the piece came from its initial inspiration in a documentary about the nefarious doings of the Church of Scientology cult. The visuals speak of a world hidden under the harsh light of day, of alien beings and warped spaces flourishing in the dead of night. Its darkly hallucinatory images remind me of David Lynch’s work, in how it rips an uncanny surrealism from seemingly mundane settings.
The video also speaks to the idea of a personal struggle and the battle against one’s own mental demons. For Brandon, this gave the work a hopeful core, despite its sinister imagery- “We went to Bakoven at 10 in the evening (it was winter at the time) to film the ocean scene. I must be honest, I didn’t feel any cold when filming that scene. I think once I put the mask on and become the alien like character, my body became numb and all that mattered was getting the most perfect and beautiful shot.’’
With this perspective, the alien figure emerging from the waves becomes an image of transformation, fighting through the dark sea of emotional turmoil into a strange and beautiful new reality.
Senay Berhe is a self-taught image creator from Stockholm, Sweden predominantly known for his work in the film industry. But what needs to be foregrounded among his other talents, is his still imagery. His creation of visual eye candy. Eye candy coated with deep depth of field, contrasted areas that melt into darkness, natural lighting and settings, traditional composition and rich tones. Silhouetted forms are lent a godlike stature with a magnificent glow around their faces, an appraisal of beauty perhaps? Moving away from his sweeping portraits, you are met with halting documentary images so vivid that they come across as the actual occurrence captured, not just a copy of real life.
His day-to-day profession as a film director has granted him access to the world as a traveler and he has thus been able to create images in New York, across African cities, as well as in the city he grew up in.
Fixated with images ever since he can remember, he was determined to find a career related to their production. Affirming his passion for the still image he expresses, “It was about two years ago that I really fell in love with photography again. I always loved photography and had been shooting occasionally, but now I’m obsessed with it and shoot every day. I set a goal a year ago: to at least take one photo a day that I’m satisfied with.”
The first moments of documentation started taking hold of his creative being as a teenager. He was driven by a desire to document the graffiti and skateboarding culture that influence him. Senay reveals his current image creation tools to me as a Fuji X 2 pro, a 23mm (35mm) f/1.4 lens that he prefers for low lighting conditions and portraiture work.
“I see my own photography as visual poetry and my work often surrounds or reflects my own emotions. It allows me to communicate what I don’t say in words. I’m quite interested in the mundane, ordinary everyday life situations and finding the beauty and surrealism in that. I look for details and tend to shoot a lot of urban life. Maybe because that’s how I live.” Senay’s imagery flows in a painterly fashion and conveys strong heart felt emotions. Emotions that are representative of his ability to identify with the people he portrays with immense dignity.
Reflecting on his practice Senay explains that he regards it as an act of documenting the now for the future. He sees his photographic work as an attempt at understanding himself and the world around him. “It makes me stay curious and takes me places, forces me to interact with people, and allows me to challenge myself, my perceptions and my beliefs.”
Senay highlights the qualities that he looks for in an image to me as beauty and simplicity. He goes on to say that he is speaking about how his subject relates to their surroundings in that moment, as well as the quality of light. “I love shooting documentary because of the element of surprise, and that’s always what I’m trying to recreate when creating an image. The aim has always been to make it feel as natural as possible, with a human touch and sensibility.”
Senay’s photographic work can be regarded as a personal documentation of the world he sees around him. His images are powerful due to the fact that they carry real emotion and a human touch and sensibility. His creation of literal eye candy, makes it difficult to look away from them or forget them. The rich tonal values combined with immense contrast are indicative of his subjective view oozing with emotion. Senay’s work is a feeling.
He will be having an exhibition of his work in the beginning of April in Stockholm.
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.
Ben Zank grew up in the Bronx, New York City. Coming from a journalism background he felt that he did not have a platform to voice his own opinion and took to photography. Finding his voice at the age of 21 by means of a 365 self-portrait project, Zank has a defining style that he refers to as bizarre minimalism. His work is often called surrealistic due to the unconventional poses his models inhabit, his use of composition and the faceless nature of his work. Here I take a look at Surrealism in photography and the relevance of Zank’s curious imagery
Zank’s photography is characterized by its scrupulous attention to composition and his faceless subjects that have the ability to transform that which is familiar into something rather peculiar. “When you shoot somebody’s face, you’re shooting their likeness, their personality, and that’s not really what I’m trying to capture.” Zank is interested in transmitting information about the human condition and his concepts for his images are often stimulated by a certain location and the mood that it evokes in him.
It is thought-provoking that Zank chooses to focus instead on the human form and not the visage, as is common practice with many photographers. His subjects’ faces are often hidden and when they do show their faces, they never look directly at the viewer. “It’s pretty common to see beautiful faces in photographs, but I’m not trying to sell that. I’m interested in portraying the human form as something architectural and surreal.”
Zank feels that in the same way that certain photographers have the ability to capture emotions in people by showing their faces, he has found that he can create a similar effect without the use of faces. Stating that the image itself is the emotion that he is conveying, identity, or rather, the lack of identity is integral to Zank’s work.
Expressing that people are the focus of his work more so than composition as he finds them more unpredictable and multi-faceted, Zank states, “The most interesting thing about photography to me is the relationship of humans between themselves and between their environment.”
Zank has however stated in interviews that his work is devoid of meaning and instead focuses on the organic manifestations of his own inner workings as well as a visual experience he wishes to convey. It is rather contradictory that Zank would make such a statement as his pursuits into photography were aimed at establishing a voice that he does not seem to intend on expressing verbally. Instead Zank lets his bizarre minimalist work speak for itself.
Susan Sontag states in On Photography (1977) that photography has the reputation of being the most realistic and simplistic of the mimetic arts. “Surrealism lies at the heart of the photographic enterprise: in the very creation of a duplicate world, of a reality in the second degree, narrower but more dramatic than the one perceived by natural vision.” (Sontag 1977).
Sontag states that Surrealism has always been open to accidents and disorderly presences. “What could be more surreal than an object which virtually produces itself, and with a minimum of effort? An object whose beauty, fantastic disclosures, emotional weight are likely to be further enhanced by any accidents that might befall it?” (Sontag 1977)
Sontag also expresses that photographs are not deeply bound to the intentions of the artist but that they exist due to loose cooperation between the photographer and his/her subject. These results according to Sontag are exciting and never entirely wrong.
When taking Sontag’s point of view into consideration it is clear that Zank’s work if not all photography falls under the surrealism wing because of its nature as a duplicate of the real world. Zank’s work however does not make use of natural compositions. The poses made by the models themselves and their uncomfortable body positions together with the faceless elements that are so key to his work make his work a perfect example of Surrealist Photography.
Taking the words of Maya Angelou’s poem ‘Phenomenal Woman’ as their map, Cape Town’s luxury bag brand BLAC Designs teamed up with mixed media artist Anna Bu Kliewer on a collage project titled Phenomenal Woman.
In an interview with founder and creative director of BLAC Designs Hamzeh Alfarahneh expressed that women have always been the primary source of inspiration for her designs. Intrigued by London-based artist Anna’s deconstruction and reconstruction of found images through a surrealist lens and the political undertones in her work, Hamzeh felt as though Anna would be able to bring his vision to life. Together they conceptualized four collage images as a way to pay homage to the multiple ways of being that women possess.
Feminine collage
With the poetic words of Maya Angelou, Safiyya al-Baghadiyya, Princess Walladabint al-Mustakfi and Anna Laetitia Barbauld resonating with both Hamzeh and Anna, they took these as their starting points, transforming the words and the feelings they evoked into Anna’s signature surrealist visuals. Speaking to Hamzeh he explained that each pair of image and poem speak to a particular theme. The Smoke collage and the words of Maya Angelou are paired to represent the power of women. The words of 12th century slave and writer Safiyya al-Baghadiyya work with the Floral collage reflect on the sexual power that women possess. The Scarf collage works with the words of Princess Walladabint al-Mustakfi of medieval Cordoba to reflect on the theme of diversity and freedom. The Feminine collage and the words of English poet and woman’s rights activist in the 17th century, Anna Laetitia Barbauld, speaks to the power of women to rise up. “We wanted whomever is looking at the project to relate with some or all of these woman, thus we have taken out any identifying features of the models,” Hamzeh explained.
Phenomenal Woman forms part of a series of collaborations involving artists that BLAC will be working on throughout the year. Check out their website to keep up with what they have planned for the year.
