Sanusi Olatunji
Victory at Last, 2022
Fabric and paper collage on canvas
167.5 x 147.5 x 4 cm
The ‘Roots to Wings’ exhibition will commence on the 10th of June 2023 and conclude on the 27th of July 2023, at Artyli Gallery situated in Nelson Mandela Square, Sandton.
The group exhibition features an array of exceptionally talented emerging and established artists, such as Andrew Ntshabele, Daniel ‘Stompie’ Selibe, Frans Thoka, Sanusi Olatunji, Restone Maambo, Ludumo Maqabuka, Teboho Makaotsa, Toni Anne Ballenden, Fumani Maluleke, Solomon Omogboye, Morgan Mahape and renowned sculptural artist Anton Smit.
The featured artists have utilised the unrelenting essence of visual art to offer social commentary on a multitude of socio-political and economic issues currently plaguing South African society and the broader African continent. More notably, these artists elucidate the importance of safeguarding cultural heritage, African identity, and the need to heal from oppressive histories. These artists have endeavoured on a unique path of activism through a profoundly introspective art practice that has captured the intricacies of human semblance and the human condition.
The title of the exhibition, ‘Roots to Wings’ is an honorary metaphor for creative becoming. It embodies the pilgrimage of those trials that constitute artistry. The exhibition speaks on the unseen rhizomatic beginnings of each artist, to the liminal spaces of their struggle and to the final culmination of their artistic prowess. This is an exhibition of testimony – documenting the artists’ young visionary departures and long-awaited arrival.
The exhibition includes performances of poetic narration of selected artworks by four Johannesburg-based poets, in addition to the poetry of Kabelo Mofokeng, who launched his new poetry book titled ‘Hungry on Arrival’. Mofokeng’s poems draw from language, tradition, and rural stories, and pay homage to those artists and poets of colour who have paved the way for younger generations aspiring to enter the realms of art and literature.
