Nel | Echoes of My Mind

Luxolo Witvoet is a young artist who first came to prominence in the field of photography. His series Journey with me in which he photographed fellow passengers on the trains to and from the city won him an attentive audience and set his direction, becoming a full-time artist. He did not stop at photography though, curious to explore, he has broadened his sphere of expertise to include printmaking and has been painting all along. He shifts his drawing to include a type of cartooning of reality and this leads him to animation and informs the style in the paintings in this show.

“I attempt to draw from memory, similar to how I drew from memory as a child. I would try and remember the details that make up something, the aim was not to depict reality but to recreate reality and use memory as the source of reference. Even when using a reference, I attempt to recreate the image as if the reference is not in front of me as if I am recollecting the figure I saw. I guess I am trying to tap into my childhood way of figuring my world.”

This artist paints people, the people whose faces he remembers, people in everyday life, faces of Jazz singers he listens to, images he saw in old family albums, faces that are conjured in his imagination. Luxolo Witvoet paints the ordinary people that fill his world. He places his 'Everyman' on covers of the iconic Drum magazine. This publication leaves an indelible mark on the consciousness of the township community that Luxolo Witvoet himself is a part of.

“DRUM was the only respectable outlet of visibility for my community. They were portrayed with the utmost integrity. I am paying homage to Drum magazine’s contribution to the fight for human recognition. This magazine shaped the culture and heritage of urban township life. And that tradition would be the very same one I would stem from, where my mother was born, and it would shape me to be the person I am today. It was the only source of media during my grandmother’s youth, and she is a part of the very first township dwellers. In the township we have what is called a repetitive cycle. It has been going on”

By placing his people on covers of Drum, which he has prepared, he elevates them to the level of celebrity. His stated respect for the work done by the magazine shows that by doing this intervention he holds these ordinary, everyday, working people in high regard. This body of work is a celebration of the ordinary people like mothers, children, initiates, musicians, schoolgirls, old people, youngsters, fathers, and folk who go about their business in unassuming ways. Luxolo Witvoet makes them the true stars that form real society.