City Of Gold I

My work reflects my relationship and interaction with the urban landscape of Johannesburg and Soweto. I am fascinated by the different facets of the landscape that forms, reflects and translates our human existence and experience.

With street art as one of my visual influences, I am drawn to the surfaces of the environments I find myself traversing.  I am inspired by the colours, marks and textures of these surfaces that form a visual communication.

The origin of the textures and marks in my prints are found under the highways, bridges, pavement corners and in and around abandoned buildings in Johannesburg and Soweto.

I find these surfaces to be very intriguing, seeing how the character is built through the different layers of human and natural interaction; the abstract nature as it ages and deteriorates and how it’s detailed or determined by its geographical location. I feel like that encapsulates our human existence and embodies the idea of identity and diversity amongst people and the places that they inhabit.

I have worked with contrasting colours; both synthetic and natural. Marks made by hand and the industrial traces of splatters and lines left behind from the spray can. This is done to tell a contemporary narrative of my relationship with my urban landscape, Johannesburg, and Soweto.