At this time there is so much uncertainty and unease in terms of the outside, the only true refuge is found inside. Being forced to remain in one’s home tends to create a reflective and introspective space. We are forced to find shelter in the shadow of the internal realm. That place that has always made sense. The place that is greater than us. Especially now. These works display that reaching into the inner world of peace, hope and longing. It is a place that reassures. It is a position that makes an eternal declaration toward our present. It pronounces that it knows its plans for us. Plans to prosper us and not to harm us. Plans to give us a hope and a future.
I am fascinated both by the ability of the human spirit to transcend ‘the conceptual decay’, and the unique liminality of the post-apartheid South African city. My works illuminate the contrasts of lived experiences by showing people mentally cocooned from, yet physically enveloped by, life’s detritus. These works become representations of the internal rather than the external. We use various means to access this inner world of aspirational desire,
music being one of them. It transports us, even if momentarily, to the world we are striving toward.
We are in a perpetual process of change, striving to transcend from deficiency to authenticity. At every stage we discover individuals we call ourselves – growing, changing, continually challenged. Like the chrysalis, we leave behind traces of who we once were as we change form from the old to the new. My works represent these chrysalised individuals as singular examples, each vital to whom we are – aspects of shifting personas gleaned over time.”
