This South African duality of Black & White is something I am currently interested in pursuing. Polar opposites within the visible colour spectrum, and also the social spectrum within South African commonality.

In the Apartheid Days, race/colour was a hierarchical stacking order of importance, whereas nowadays they are so much more integrated. From a social amalgamation point of view, and as a way of analyzing the totality of the South African “personality” the synthesis of Black & White (or Brown & Pink as a lesser reduction devoid of stigmatic connotations) serves as a way of communicating views on the social amalgamation. Through the analysis of these respective components and the influence they have on one another, a stylized interpretation of the current social pressures may start to take shape.

 

Notions of self representation, within a radically stigmatized arena, are the base for the group of works wherein individuals are shown to be either painting themselves (willingly or otherwise), having paint applied by an external factotum of prejudice, or in the process of removing this emblem of societal influence