NEL | OKAY / OBEY : The Masters of Confusion

Thabo Pitso’s solo exhibition OKAY | OBEY the Masters of Confusion, presented by Nel Gallery, takes the everyday consumer information media, like sale pamphlets and grocery specials as its medium and its source material. He lifts iconography and text from everyday commercial advertising and then through layering, juxtapositioning and the placement of an array of images through collage, arrives at new narratives that speak a more sensitive language which can seem almost at odds with the parts it consists of.

The artist writes:

“I explore personal and cultural products and produce work that shows both inner narratives and social practices of mass-produced media propaganda that is used to construct new meanings.”

At a certain level, we are almost immune to the layers of commercial advertising media he bombards us with exactly because it is so every day, so much part of our everyday life. We invite you to look closer and delight in the many new stories and portraits embedded within the discarded media of yesterday’s specials. The work takes the idea of repurposing waste, specifically trash media, to another level, breathing life into something that was never intended to speak in a personal tone, or to one’s own identity in such nuanced ways.