Night Skirmishes Print

“Following (B)orders” is materially speaking, a collection of large-scale drawings and paintings using oil paint, powdered graphite, maize, glitter, aluminium gutter paint and commercial water-based enamels on paper, wood and canvas. Thematically, the pictures excavate the invisible ubiquity of struggle and counter-struggle, both internally and externally. Motivation comes chiefly from the inglorious, century-long Eastern Cape Frontier Wars and the psychological damage wreaked by the fallout of this festering conflict. Inasmuch as art-making may exact some satisfaction from corporeal events; it must also act in part as a balancing medium by attempting to re-align the doctoring of the historical record. These pictures are thus an assortment of “Battlefield Documents” that record the timeless unseen 19th century traumas that extend their tentacles into the present day disaffections and profound resentments that so trouble society.