EBONY/CURATED | Things That Are My Own

EBONY/CURATED is pleased to present ‘Things That Are My Own’, a debut solo exhibition in Cape Town, by Balekane Legoabe.

Legoabe’s work explores the relationship between nature, spirituality and identity by interrogating personal and collective histories. She is interested in how the human experience mirrors the processes of nature and vice versa. Seasons, cycles, birth, death, growth, decline, resilience, change, resistance, expansion - all of these phenomena are markers of the human experience, and we also see them, in one way or another, affecting plants, animals, the elements and the cosmos.

Her artistic vision is enriched by a diverse array of influences, including ancient rock art and cave paintings, as well as mythology from African, Eastern, and Western traditions. Legoabe's approach incorporates aspects of language, metaphor, ritual, and family. Driven by personal interpretations and explorations of African and Eastern healing practices, she weaves together eclectic philosophical and religious systems to inform her creative process.

Invocation

in which the ancestors are returned what was not given / in which our bones remember the dust and air they are made of/ in which memory holds the weight of all stars/ in which we are burdened by our own light/ how we belong to the names we are given/ and by our names / we bear their charge/ say agwang/ ashina/ kura/ say i am the shadowed howl/ i come by claws / by hunger/ by meat and honey/ as the livid wound/ as blood red//dolence/indexed: / small fires of the bottle brush­tree I summer's hibiscus/ brightjuice of the pomegranate/ split sweet/ overripe mangoes/ milkwood fruit/ the fevered neck/ the leather/ the warp/ the woof/ -delive//red / i rise from earth and water/ awake/ awake/ i mourn/ i bless/ i wail/ i bend/ betwixt/ i/ you/ every creature of flesh/ - praise be/ the slow current of years/ the soft cave of the mouth/ the language of sight/ black scars of the eyes/ two obsidian moons/ the petroglyph of the body/ skin like use-worn ochre/ muscles stretched over rock/ lines tracing the unseen/ the shape of what moves and holds/ - draw me from memory/ as the buck bounding from the trap/ as the wilderness of a long season/ rising like spirit-smoke/ if you call i'II come/ - close/ closer/ between the salt and the cut/ between the skin and the seam/ - say the incantation/ wood of sorrow/ flint of want/ ash-white spark of ache/ breathe me out/ sigh river alive/ i am whale-fall in the tide of your lungs/ name what swarms the sea of you/ the cheek between stroke/ and stroke/ the soft bread of palms/ kissing in your (grand)mother(s) tongue/ hips that move like confessions slipping into an attic room/ bruised imprints of touch/ gestures that cradle/ that rock the atoms of us/ into the crinkle of time/ into life/ into death/ into the coming of dawn/ and every dawn to come- Sarah Lubala

This show runs from 23 October - 30 November 2024.