Using fast-tempo Bach sheet music juxtaposed against a still figure, Andrew Ntshabele’s signature style of merging acrylic paint and vintage collage imagery is at its finest. With Pollock-inspired paint swirls scattered in rhythmic movements around the canvas, exploding over the image of a melancholic child, “Encounters 7” is powerfully evocative and worthy to be marvelled at.
Contrasting the stillness of the figure with the rhythmic implications of the vintage sheet music, Ntshabele creates a space for deep contemplation. Despite the girl having buried her head in her arms, her one eye stares back at us. It is this powerful gaze that creates an encounter between her and us as the viewers. The girl seems alive, as our minds drown in a quiet curiosity about her.
Ntshabele can be deemed a historian in that he documents the past, it’s effect on the present, and the merging of eras that sculpt the future. It is no wonder that his beautiful depictions of joyous children on vintage backgrounds are rising to international acclaim. His current exhibition under which this above artwork takes part of, “Encounters II”, explores the themes that surface when two different era’s are juxtaposed in the same space.
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