Self Portrait
No Longer Available
Medium
Charcoal and acetone on paper
Dimensions
24 x 30"
Cost
$1,800
Description
I did not appreciate or even understand my home until I was not able to return to it. This experience of being disconnected from my family and cultural background is archived in my work. Through archiving this disconnect, I explore my childhood memories of dysfunctional familial relationships and Swazi/Xhosa traditional practices. The images of cow and goat skulls in my drawings depict ritualistic practices such as the initiation of the Sangoma (Swazi/Zulu traditional diviner), that integrate the animal to help the living commune with ancestral spirits. These images of skulls are merged with distorted human figures to show the essential and symbiotic relationships that we have with our natural surroundings in the context of ritual and ancestral worship, as well as the complex and life altering changes that traditional healers experience. My research of shamanistic and initiation practices in Swaziland has allowed me to make images that explore these events through combining different aspects of the initiation process such as purging and sacrifice into one cohesive composition. The concept of family is also depicted in the process of merging printing techniques with drawing. These works use drawings and printed family photographs to archive the images of people in my family, exploring the idea of lineage through a lens of Swazi/Xhosa traditional religion. Through a variety of printmaking process, I continue using family photographs, processing them to create hazy, ghost-like effects which are then layered to become disorienting images that evoke ideas around memory and perception. Through distorted text and narrative structures, these experiences are turned into stories that show generational differences, spiritual practices and specific impactful events. With these images, I present the viewer with a record of my experiences within my family and country through the lens of ancestral worship and ritual.About this Artist
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