‘INTERLUDE’ EXHIBITION

2021: SESSIONS Course Group Exhibition, Facilitated by Dominique Edwards, 196 Victoria Gallery, Cape Town.

“There is a bird in the house”

I was initially drawn to the image of my young father. The portraits of him sparked a conversation about family and memory, how families shape and form the people in them, and ultimately the relationship we have with ourselves and the world at large – especially during the pandemic, a time steeped in loss and forged connections. I started revisiting his image – working from my grandfather’s photographs and eventually, from my memory of the photograph itself. I subsequently became interested in the complexity of memory; how it distorts, fades and can be imagined or reconstructed. Keeping this in mind, I started constructing the bodies of the portraits I found myself drawn to, attempting to embody the people I love and, in some cases, once knew. This process of embodiment brought me to work with my own body, incorporating into my enquiry an approach that involves an intensity in the painting process, relying on gesture, working in bursts and pushing the relationships between figure, form, colour and mark.