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Black Becoming
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Black Becoming
Bambo SibiyaThroughout history art has simultaneously been an imperative cultural catalyst for change and a necessity for the human spirit that fosters individual solace and collective contemplation. Contemporary art and art spaces are increasingly emerging as the locus for critical conversations ranging from liberation to intersectional injustices, all of which have been conjured through beguiling representations of complex realities.Bambo Sibiya is one such artist who captures collectors and consumers by balancing his canvas between alluring aesthetics and foregrounding pressing subject matter relating to hardship and hope simultaneously. The impact of Sibiya’s work derives from the artist's ability to appeal to the viewer's sense of beauty, while cultivating awareness about multiple social ills.Social Realism is an art movement that emerged with the onset of World War I and World War II in response to the prevailing social condition present during those periods. Social Realism is notably associated with the era of the Great Depression of the 1930s that occurred in the United States. The movement was particularly critical of the adversity endured by the working class across social, economic and racial contexts. The Social Realism movement expressed its contempt through the visual mediums of painting, sculpture, photography and literature.Sibiya is influenced by and subtly incorporates characteristics of Social Realism, to foreground socio-political issues endured by the marginalised. Sibiya highlights the flaws of society by touching on topical themes such as the politics of social inequality, racial segregation, and migration. Most of Sibiya’s inspiration is derived from the stories of single mothers and migrant workers - their sacrifices and strength.Sibiya's most prominent works have centred on the subculture of Swenkas in Black townships. Swenking originates from an ancestral Zulu tradition of a cappella singing, known as ‘isicathamiya’, which was traditionally practised at celebratory events such as weddings and cultural holidays. Later on, as a culture of respect and style, ‘Swenking’ emerged in the 1970s as a competition between Zulu men living in worker’s hostels, who were working as migrant mine workers in the city.Swenka culture is both a ritual and a form of performative art perceived to have developed in response to rapid migration owed to the advent of the mining industry in South Africa during the era of apartheid.Swenking evolved as a cultural practice of resistance and as a socio-political statement against the prevailing economic order and contexts of poverty and oppression. Swenka culture provided a protected space of freedom and seminal moments of Black joy and Black pride.Swenking is said to be “a conscious enactment of dandyism”, notably Black dandyism, as a self-fashioning historical subculture that has given new meaning and new contexts to existing and established cultural styles. Swenkas embody elegance, affluence and a form of refined masculinity that at times alludes to gender fluidity. Swenkas have used the body as a site on which to express identity through sartorial choice and attitude. Merging the modern and the traditional, the cultures of Europe and Africa, Swenka’s have created a cultural hybrid of urban fashion, and a cosmopolitan identity in the globalised era.In her text, ‘Portrait of a Gentleman - Swenking and the Reactualisation of Dandyism in South Africa’, Daniela Goeller writes that Swenking “helped to create a modern Black identity, reflecting conditions of urban living, an intention for creating social cohesion and maintaining tradition and cultural practices, resulting in a form of appropriation and creolization, fundamental to post-colonial societies.”Sibiya’s depiction of Swenka culture is one in which Black identity becomes wealth, becomes abundance and becomes cosmopolitan. Sibiya conceives of Blackness as a way of being without limitation, that cannot be confined. In so doing, Sibiya deviates from the single story that has historically perpetuated stereotypical associations between Blackness and poverty.Prolific Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks on the dangers of stereotypes stating that “the single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”1. Goeller, D. 2016. Portrait of a Gentleman - Swenking and the Reactualisation of Dandyism in South Africa.
Written by Keisha Jacobs -
Subterranean Solidarity
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Subterranean Solidarity
Asanda KupaAsanda Kupa utilises the Italian painting technique of impasto to craft depthful small-scale works in which he layers Earth and figures of people. Kupa captures tonalities of dark and light, with his colour palette elevating the depth of his subject matter. Kupa’s works are a seamless merge of abstraction and figuration owed to softly sporadic flows of paint.A Marxist analysis of art holds that art can only capture the context in which it emerges. The idea that art solely derives from the heart and spirit of the artist is a myth emerging from an aspect of bourgeois idealist philosophy. That is to say that the artist, as a cultural producer, creates art as a cultural product, which is possibly a cardinal component of the human condition, reflecting prevailing conditions in human society. The artistic calling then is essentially to reflect on space and time given that both art and artist are tethered to the culture of a society and its larger socio-political contexts.Asanda Kupa works in the liminal space that exists between historical context and self-expression, hereby capturing social realities of the marginalised while reaching for the heights of creative expression through an intuitive and introspective art process.The presence of ideology in a work of art often goes unseen or unnoticed by the spectator, yet the prevailing ideology does express itself in the message or the absence of the message - that is what the work says, and equally, what it does not say. To critique the history of class and the practice of exploitation as referenced in art is to analyse art from an economic perspective, hereby creating a relation between culture and the economic fundamentals of a society.Kupa visually protests on behalf of the people, particularly blue-collar workers of the working class. Kupa incorporates a subtle Marxist philosophy in his work by highlighting the class conflict that exists between the proletariat and bourgeoisie. Kupa advocates for a return to community while probing into those power dynamics at play that engenders unequal distributions of wealth and resources in capitalist societies.The traditional association between art and mining can be traced back to the 19th century, with mining art particularly focusing on the controversial politics of the mining industry. The mining industry has cultivated artistic interest in emotive themes that respond to the anxieties of death and claustrophobia. Many artists often choose to empathise with mineworkers forced to work in confined conditions underground and with the families of mineworkers who became victims of mining disasters.The works of Asanda Kupa touches on the intersection between mining and migration by spotlighting the plight of mineworkers, both physical and emotional. Kupa illustrates a poignant pathos for those working in occupations characterised by volatility and the heightening of an already precarious existence.Kupa speaks of friendship and camaraderie - the kinship of miners, who migrated from their communities in rural areas to densely populated urban cities, in search of better livelihoods. To Kupa, there is a solidarity that exists underground and in the shifting.Mine artists not only depicted conditions underground, but also the positive and negative impacts the mining industry had on the land and the community. The mining industry, although providing a source of income for many skilled manual labourers, is an industry that has a profound carbon footprint as it disrupts the natural functioning of ecosystems, by causing water contamination, soil erosion and a loss of biodiversity. In recognising the environmental harms of the mining industry, there is a need for ecological alternatives to extractive processes that would benefit both people and the planet.Historically, land has been used as a tool of oppression when considering notions of accessibility that concerns which bodies are or are not denied entry. The topic of land ownership is influenced by government policies and public opinion on issues of resource extraction, technological advancement, and more recently, Indigenous sovereignty and ecological concerns about climate change.Art about land issues have become forms of creative land reclamation. To converse with the land is an act of making meaning and memory. To colonised peoples, the land is a site of identity and belonging, intermeshed with history and with heritage.Speaking on the concept of freedom, Kupa considers the possibilities of landscapes as liberated environs, granting greater opportunities to wander and explore uncharted terrains. To Kupa, the land, created by God, can only belong to itself.Kupa’s subject matter and technical style are influenced by leading South African artists such as Ephraim Ngatane, Gerard Sekoto and George Pemba. These are artists who used visual mediums to speak on the injustice of racial inequality and depicted the vibrant yet politically charged realities of those living in townships during the apartheid regime in South Africa.As a contemporary of his influences, Kupa continues the significant contribution to the cultural development that emerged in 20th century South Africa, as his paintings capture the essence of what it means to be driven by the hope for opportunity. Kupa’s works are grounded in the memory of experiences originating in both past and present, while carrying the identity of the crowd and the spirit of the collective.
Written by Keisha Jacobs -
Liminal Musings
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Liminal Musings
Andrew NtshabeleThe art of contemporary artist Andrew Ntshabele softly probes at the visceral intersection of oppressive histories and futurities of liberation within South Africa. Ntshabele’s art is a requiem for the generations that came before. For the youth living in a haunted present; said to be the future but with disquiet futures.
Ntshabele’s artworks function as a double disruption to the Western art canon – first through the undaunted insertion of Black figures on canvas, and secondly within gallery spaces that were often permeated with colonial imagery. Ntshabele actualises decolonisation as art practice through historical visual assemblages; hereby subverting narratives of erasure by foregrounding the young and the maternal, most notably the motif of the Black child and the Black mother who are often marginalised.
Andrew Ntshabele’s work is an expression of juxtaposed temporality and in reaching into the depths of the archive, his artistic practice is an endeavour of radical remembrance. The archive plays a significant role in the visualisation and remembrance of identity.
In Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression Jacques Derrida refers to the “future interior of the archive”, which speaks about the archive as a mnemonic device that does not look back at history, but rather it is exceptionally futuristic. The archive determines what future generations will know, making it inherently ‘forward-looking’.
Andrew Ntshabele uses art to speak a poignant and authentic truth about the past, to and for the children and for those who have experienced oppression. Ntshabele’s art is birthed from spirit and prayer, deeply grounded in memory both personal and archival, yet bound by contemporary reflections that inspire a tender sense of hope. Ntshabele’s subject matter is not intended to cultivate division, but speaks of the need for a recognition of the past as a means of collective healing and reconciliation.
1. Derrida, J. 1995. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Diacritics, 25(2):9-6.
Written by Keisha Jacobs
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We are the Messiah
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We Are The Messiah
Frans Thoka
There are artist activists that utilise art as a cultural weapon of racial struggle and consider art as a way of transcending creativity toward a more political expression. These are the artists that often remind other creatives of their obligation to foster a revolutionary culture within society through art. Emerging contemporary African artist activist stands amongst these artists, through subject matter that grapples with injustice and imprisonment that is dually literal and metaphoric in the contexts of culture and spirit.
In Discourse on Colonialism (a book described as a ‘poetics of anti-colonialism’ as a manifesto for the Third World) French poet, author and politician Aimé Césaire offers an in-depth critique of colonialism and its inherent contradictions. Colonialism (intricately linked to imperialism) was justified on the basis of Western progress. This “progress” was sought after at the expense of communities of colour. This was a “progress” saturated with mass racial subjugation, and violated human rights. Colonialism then is a subversion in and of itself, its own embedded ideals.
Thoka laments that historically humans have not been quite humane; his artwork is thus a message that signals an urgent return to our lost collective humanity. In using a distinct art medium of blankets, Thoka emphasises that there is a need for a social imperative of softer realities, for existences that do not reside at societal margins.
Thoka artistically speaks about the remnants of the apartheid regime and colonialism that continue to reside within racially marginalised communities. Remnants that have impacted cultural consciousness, identity and the navigation of public space through time. The art practice of Thoka is therefore radically decolonial.
Decolonisation is the process of ameliorating past socio-political injustices endured by former colonies through the struggles of redress and reclamation. Within an African context, decolonisation is a project of re-centring Africa and its people. It provides Africans with an opportunity to narrate African histories and experiences from an authentically African perspective.
Thoka honours those bodies that were displaced from lands that know the truth; his canvas becomes agential, granting a homecoming for the evicted and exiled.
Decolonisation has taken hold in public space, education, culture and art. The Westernisation of art emerges through the preservation of white history that has attributed sole validity to its own existence, at the expense of those racial and ethnic groups deemed as Other and subjected to otherness.
Thoka is an artist that advocates for historical reflection, for the addressing of generational trauma, for ancestral connection. For Thoka, art is purpose, a calling to speak the truth about that which cannot be forgotten. Thoka utilises art spaces to exhibit blanketed shadow landscapes that cast light on troubling tribulations in a country with a darkened history owed to multiple forms of oppression and racial erasure.
1. ‘Césaire, A. 1950. Discourse on Colonialism. Monthly Review Press.
Written by Keisha Jacobs -
Subcultural Sites
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Subcultural Sites
Ludumo MaqabukaContemporary African artist Ludumo Maqabuka creates a seamless fusion between graffiti and figurative art in his personal interpretation of the complexities of South African society. Graffiti art merges street art and public art. It is a form of visual communication, often unsanctioned, to and for the public. It is a rebellious art movement that dates back to the ancient empires while also having its origins in 1970s New York. Graffiti has since grown in popularity, with multiple renowned artists incorporating the graffiti aesthetic into the work.Maqabuka explores how social norms in Black townships communities are particularly shaped by urban subcultures. The term subculture is defined as a subset culture that occurs outside of a dominant mainstream culture. Subcultures are groups that have varying non-mainstream beliefs and interests, evident in an affinity for visual and material culture that is often considered as deviating from the mainstream. Mainstream culture exists on a continuum of inclusivity and exclusivity. When the interests and beliefs of marginalised groups are not represented by mainstream culture; a sense of belonging and freedom is then created through the liminality of subcultures.Contextually the development of subcultural theory can be credited to two perspectives, the Chicago School of America and the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) of Britain. In the context of subcultures, there have been two key observations. The first observation is that deviance and social circumstance tend to be interlocked, with marginalised groups, often gravitating toward subcultures. The second observation centres on the resistance that underpins subcultures, manifesting as a particular reaction against an existing social order. This resistance is often articulated through external personae such as sartorial choice and body modification.Maqabuka depicts iconic figures in music, art and politics to explore how African identity is shaped by the influential presence of popular culture, which is increasingly transforming the contemporary art landscape.Popular culture is not high culture, but mass culture, it is an authentic culture of the people. As a form of mass culture, it is characterised by mass production and mass consumption. Hence, the integration of popular culture, as a form of mass culture, has posed questions about whether or not art has become more accessible to the broader public.Written by Keisha Jacobs -
Beaded Tradition
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Beaded Tradition
Morgan MahapeThe art world has joined the conversation on sustainability. The pending question is whether environmental degradation and climate change can be addressed through the art scene. Sustainable art is often defined as either art that uses sustainable materials and art that encourages conversations about sustainability.
The beaded works of contemporary African artist Morgan Mahape is a form of sustainable art depicting an intricate convergence of hued human figures and lustre landscapes. By underscoring the environmental impact of mass waste culture, Mahape artistically advocates for reduction and recycling, for the organic and the green.
Mahape’s art medium of beads is an ode to the negation of value within African histories of trade and colonialism. In archeological history, beads and beadwork can be traced back to the dawn of civilization, but its source, its origin, is Africa. The technological age of the art form can be determined by the material used. African beads were predominantly made from organic materials such as bone, (egg) shells and seeds. Africa has traded beads with countries situated in both Asia and Europe, but it was European beads made from glass that became rather popular and prized on the continent. Across the world beads are adornments and carriers of meaning - communicating messages that are social and spiritual in nature. In Africa beads are important signifiers of culture and ethnicity which in part constitutes identity.
Mahape weaves the individual to the community; his is a conscientious construction of a coming together that cannot be forsaken. Hence, a central thematic concern in the works of Mahape is that of community, in a global sense, but particularly in an African context.
The connection between the community and the individual is emphasised by the philosophy of communitarianism. The philosophy offers a critique against the belief that development is solely gained from (rugged) individualism. Instead it posits that the social identity and personality of an individual is significantly shaped by relationships made within a community. In Western values, the individual is singular, while in Africa, the individual is defined according to the uniquely African ethos of Ubuntu which when translated means “I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am.”
Written by Keisha Jacobs
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Prelude to Expression
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Prelude to Expression
Daniel 'Stompie' SelibeThe artworks of Daniel ‘Stompie’ Selibe embody the characteristics of Neo-Expressionism, a contemporary art movement that draws from themes of culture, mythology, history and even nationalism and the erotic. Neo-Expressionism emerged in the 1970s, gaining popularity in the 1980s, in the art world of the United States and Europe, particularly Germany with its strong heritage of Expressionism. The art movement of Neo-Expressionism exists within the liminal space of Modernism and Postmodernism and drew its influence from several distinct art movements, namely early 20th-century Expressionism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art.
Daniel ‘Stompie’ Selibe forms creative novelty formed from deconstruction and then reconstruction of the existing. The details in Selibe’s artworks reveal diverse depth by design, as he brings the canvas to life through vivid colour and abstract mark-makings.
The art genre of Neo-Expressionism is distinguished by a return to painterly figurative representations of, but not limited to, the human form that are often distorted, which in the process, seamlessly merges the styles of figuration and abstraction. Neo-Expressionism stands in reaction, according to Sotheby’s to “detached intellectualism and ideological purity of Minimalism and Conceptualism.”
The textural works of the Neo-Expressionist art genre are often considered to be violently emotive, capturing intense inner emotions and subjective perceptions of reality and ideas. The art movement sought to shift away from realism and non-representational to embody more expressionist art forms. Hence Neo-Expressionist artists, most notably which include Jean-Michel Basquiat, Anselm Kiefer, Enzo Cucchi, Julian Schnabel and the founder of the movement, Georg Baselitz, and many more, had multiple cultural names across the world such as ‘Neue Wilden’ (‘New Fauves’, derived from Fauvism) in Germany, ‘Transavanguardia’ (Transavantgarde) in Italy, and ‘Figuration Libre’ in France.
The remedial melodies of music, particularly old-school jazz, guides Selibe’s visions and visualisation, as he translates the contours of chaos in the mind, those troubling thoughts from inner worlds that at times seem devoid of respite. For both Selibe and his audience, creative expression becomes the catharsis, for imagination and art coalesce to call us home.
Written by Keisha Jacobs
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Earth Muse
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Earth Muse
Carey CarterCarey Carter uses materiality as language to carry a critical ethos of environmental sustainability. Carter’s artistic practice is an act of ancient remembrance that foregrounds the importance of ethical co-existence with the more-than-human world. Symbolically Carter’s sculptures are a reminder of our corporeality, that is to have a body and be a body, is what brings us closer, it is our source of connection to humans and non-human embodied others.The nature/culture dualism has resulted in the current geological epoch of the Anthropocene, characterised by ecocides and an urgent climate crisis. Algerian-French philosopher Jacques Derrida revealed that dualisms may appear to be symmetrical when in actual fact they are implicated in profound power relations, whereby the dominance of one construct is dependent on the subservience of the other. In this case, the human species have predicated cultural dominance at the expense of the natural environment, however, the dualism of nature/culture can no longer hold, for the survival of all species is dependent on bridging this separation.The discourse of New Materialism advocates that bridging the nature/culture separation must begin with a radical return to matter. It must begin with language. To Social Constructionists language lacks neutrality, for realities are constructed by language; worlds are created through processes of description. Hence, a significant emphasis is placed on constructing a new terminology in order to reconfigure the relationship between humans and the more-than-human world, as an imperative act of care. American Professor and Feminist New Materialist scholar Donna Haraway coined the term “semiotic-material knot” that speaks about the intricate entanglement of language and the material world. For New Materialists, the notion of '‘wording’ is ‘worlding’' is the locus of world creation, in which the usage of language determines how worlds are treated.Visual artists are increasingly illuminating an innate connectivity and mutual interdependence that exists between human and more-than-human ecologies. These are artists that are not only engaging with but are creating artistic productions as creative strategies to bring awareness to questions surrounding what it means to be human and what positions humans and non-humans hold in the Anthropocene.Carey Carter is one such visual artist who engages with the Earth to source natural materials in order to create her organic sculptures which are in turn interwoven with the physical and metaphoric substance of all materials occurring in nature. The sculptural forms of Carey Carter repeatedly pointed to the continuity of Earth and the human body.Carter’s sculptures speak of homing identities that are both tethered to and returning to nature, as she constructs the sculptures of the body from its original agential Earthly materials imbued with an intrinsic vitalism. Carter creates sculptures in which Earth and body are caught in intimate dialogue - as Earth carries the body, so too does the body carry the Earth. In so doing, Carter undermines static boundaries between humans and the more-than-human world.
1. ‘Anthropocene’ - The term ‘Anthropocene’, was first coined by Eugene Stoermer in the 1980s and later popularised by Paul Crutzen, refers to the current geological epoch in which human omnipresence and excessive human activity has fundamentally transformed the Earth’s biosphere and geological time.
2. ‘New Materialism’ - is an interdisciplinary, theoretical, and politically committed field of inquiry, emerging roughly at the millennium as part of what may be termed the ‘post-constructionist’, ‘ontological’, or ‘material turn’.
3. ‘Social Constructionism’ - is a framework that proposes that people collectively develop the meanings (denotations and connotations) of social constructs instead of observing physical reality.
Written by Keisha Jacobs
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Material as Metaphor
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Material as Metaphor
Fathema BemathThroughout history, minority groups have often been subjected to prejudiced representations which must often be addressed by artists within those minority groups in order to insert and assert the voices and experiences of their respective communities. Here, Fathema Bemath uses the female perspective and female subjectivity to represent the bodies and beauty of women differently through sculpture. In this sense Bemath utilises sculptures to foster identification and mutual recognition between the viewer and sculpted subject. Hence Bemath’s sculptures function as a synecdoche, in which a part represents the whole – in this instance, the larger community of women from a variety of backgrounds.Beauty standards have changed gradually through time but contemporary women artists, particularly artists of colour have used multiple mediums in art to assess and challenge those depictions of beauty that have equally remained unchanged. South African sculptor Fathema Bemath is one such artist that has critiqued and challenged ideal standards of beauty held by men and the West by advocating for the need to embrace diverse forms of beauty.Bemath uses clay as the material from which to sculpt her sculptures. Like clay that can be moulded, so too are women moulded by the norms and expectations of a patriarchal society. As her clay sculptures fracture, so do women fracture under the pressure of conforming to the ideals of femininity and beauty. To Fathema, the material carries her message of liberation for all those who identify as women. Hers is a message that recognises that injustices done to women, can as a start, be remedied through artistic dialogue and by an unapologetic sense of being that is not defined nor restricted by the gender binary and gender social constructs.The social construct of gender and notions of femininity has been a violent surveillance done to us all. The policing of gender centres around inclusion and exclusion, whereby metaphorical and at times literal walls prevent and block certain individuals from entering and passing through. In ‘An Affinity Of Hammers’, British-Australian writer Sara Ahmed states that “we can think of gender, too, as an institution. We can think of gender norms as places in which we dwell: some are more at home than others; some are unhoused by how others are at home.”Bemath deviates from portraiture to foster an all-encompassing engagement from multiple angles with her sculptural female forms and thus with women. In doing so, Bemath challenges the male gaze to disrupt the objectification and stereotypical over-sexualisation of women in creative spaces such as galleries and museums.The famous notion of ‘the male gaze’ was first introduced by the discipline of Psychoanalysis. Laura Mulvey’s conceptualisation of the Freudian term ‘scopophilia’ refers to the pleasure of looking, in addition to the pleasure of being looked at. Mulvey presented a related feminist critique of the male gaze and its association with a masculine subject position of voyeurism and narcissism in her seminal article titled ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (1975).Agency is a primary tool in the politics of visibility for marginalised groups. The possibility to reclaim agency arises when the male gaze can be manipulated despite the presence of those structures of domination that aim to maintain it. Therefore, in relations of power, those who have been deemed as subordinate have learnt through experience about the critical (female) gaze as a gaze that is oppositional. The female gaze is a self-conscious act that not only disorientates the male gaze but responds to hegemonic looking-relations that are gendered, racial and cultural in nature. The female gaze is a gaze that rises above the depiction of women as always the victim of the gaze, by alienating the subject, who is generally male and/or white, who has always had the privilege to gaze freely.1. Ahmed, S. 2016. An Affinity for Hammers. Transgender Studies Quarterly, 3(1-2):22-34.
Written by Keisha Jacobs -
Experiential Encounters
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Experiential Encounters
Karen CullinanThe concept of phenomenology, coined by Austrian-German philosopher Edmund Hursell, considers the philosophies of the subjective lived experience of the individual. Multiple forms of visual culture have become tools for inquiries of transcendental phenomenology, at first to elucidate the nexus between the visible and invisible as metaphors for the conscious and subconscious, and secondly to capture aesthetic “expressions of human life” as stated by German philosopher Martin Heideggar.
The artworks of Karen Cullinan are phenomenological in nature, as she probes at time bound subjective human experience that carries philosophical implications of the human condition, that when deconstructed, could even possibly allude to subtle universal truths.
Cullinan creates complex works on canvas that offer commentary on a layered ontology that is shaped by time, through time. Cullinan’s works capture the notion of liminality, the space of transition that exists as mind, body and Spirit venture through and within different states of existence. As life is a process toward an end, Cullinan reflects on creativity as a guided yet unguided existential egress that grants a closeness to Spirit, to embodied others and to the self.
Linked to phenomenology is the notion of 'situated knowledge’ coined by feminist New Materialist scholar Donna Haraway. Situated knowledge speaks about knowledge that emerges from your living body as a living being, hereby recognising the link between meanings and bodies. The term holds that knowledge is obtained subjectively from experience and that there cannot be a splitting of subject from object. In this sense, detachment becomes an illusion, for living beings are situated in their bodies which are situated in spatial or temporal contexts.
American physicist and feminist theorist Karen Barad captures the essence of situated knowledge, writing that “we are not outside observers of the world. Neither are we simply located at particular places in the world; rather, we are part of the world in its ongoing intra-activity.”
Karen Cullinan creates art that emerges from her knowledge, her own being. She engages in the manifesting of her inner world in varied visual mediums. Cullinan’s artistic process is cathartic and she uses a canvas and other mixed media as sites on which the source of her transformation is translated. Cullinan creates works that are a documentation of her personal odyssey through life, evolving and shifting through time as she is, hereby remaining in a constant condition of becoming.
1. Haraway, D. 1988. Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3):575-599.2. Barad, K. 2003. Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter. Signs, 28(3): 801-831.
Written by Keisha Jacobs -
Crowning Glory
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Crowning Glory
Samantha Maseko -
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