ART OF EVERYDAY THINGS by Africa Contemporary Space

ART OF EVERYDAY THINGS

FINAL CATALOGUE of WORKS from AFRICACONTEMPORARY.ART & MUSEUMSTOREAFRICA.COM

ART OF EVERYDAY THINGS

17 APRIL - 29 MAY

KEVIN COLLINS CERAMICS CANVASES

NYAMBO MASAMARA

JEANIUS EXCHANGE

PHOTOGRAPHS SCULPTURE

BESPOKE ART GARMENTS

COAST & KOI LUXURY SLIPPERS

JAFFER MODERN VIB HOTEL 181 MAIN ROAD GREEN POINT CAPE TOWN

PETRUS SEKELE WOODEN WALKING STICKS

INTRODUCTION

ART OF EVERYDAY THINGS : 17 APRIL - 29 MAY 2021 WHAT: A group exhibition, incorporating South African artists, working in a range of media from traditional oil and gouache to mosaic and even motorbikes, focusing on unconventional and whimsical usage of the subjects and objects as object d’art, fashion, sculptural installations, and photographs.

THE PARTNERSHIP Kathy Berman of AfricaContemporary.Art (ACA) and MuseumStore.Africa (MSA) has responded to the invitation from the Jaffer Modern team to curate and introduce both artists and designers that she represents. These include:

ARTISTS

• Kevin Collins

• Nyambo MasaMara

• Ace (Cephus Nono) of Jeanius Exchange

• Wooden Handcrafted Walking sticks by Petrus Sekele

• Coast and Koi slippers

These works are incorporated into a broader exhibition curated by Sara Khan for Jaffer Modern, including the work of Laylaa Jacobs (prayer mats), Razia Myers (oil on canvas), Hanna Noor Mohamed (gouache), Petra Vonk (sneakers) and Ziyanda Majozi (mosaic)

Included herein is a catalogue of ACA artists only.

KEVIN COLLINS

ABOUT KEVIN COLLINS

Whimsy, delight. These are the words that spring to mind when confronted with Kevin Collins’ diverse oeuvre of artworks. Classically trained at the Michaelis School of Art, Cape Town, in the late 1970s, under such South African luminaries as Stanley Pinker, Gavin Young, Cecil Skotnes, and Helmut Starke , Kevin’s work both acknowledges a classical tradition while dwelling in a dream-world of fantasy and wonderment. Kevin’s career has been as diverse as his media, and has included a highly acclaimed career in advertising as a top creative director. He also spent considerable time as a lecturer, teacher and trainer in advertising, film and visual art, and is a renowned chef who guests at prestigious establishments. Kevin currently juggles his practice as a full-time artist, brand consultant and chef. His work references classical Western art, culture and mythology, while also channeling his own multilingual global upbringing: Kevin’s family lived in Mauritius, while Kevin and his brother were schooled at a boarding school in Pretoria. His work ranges from oil on board and canvas to his recent series of unique ceramic fables, myths and memes - and consist of “portrait” studies with birds, cats and interesting totems and symbols. His ceramic work emerged as experimental pieces which accompanyied a significant exhibition of large-scale canvases in 2019. Kevin has continued producing over lock-down - to acclaim and rapacious acquisition by admirers - for their originality, wit and uplifting messaging. Specially created for exhibit at Jaffer Modern, Kevin’s latest series of ceramics, continues with the themes of portraiture and whimsical association, and serves as his Cape Town ceramic debut. KATHY BERMAN 2021

KEVIN COLLINS ARTIST’S STATEMENT Dream and ‘real life’ often intersect in my universe. My world is a curious duality in which conforming has always been incredibly difficult. But I am certainly never to be associated with the celebrated myth of the ‘tortured artist’. I paint what I am, which is really a positive, curious and highly personal (but I hope sufficiently universal for anyone to engage) journey. The small items that are embedded in my mind from years ago are still so vivid and vital although present as faded fragments. To quote Francis Bacon's words of "courting accidents", my application of paint and mark-making is often spontaneous and not particularly well planned - the joy of accidents in material and mark-making is incredibly exciting for me. Accused of not being able to focus at school, my world has never been one of dogged focus with clear outcomes in mind. Long-term planning is often what I am going to have for dinner. Today, right now, is what inspires me - thus the blank canvas, or lump of clay, is loaded with possibilities at every encounter. In my painting, I use a rather limited palette of less than 10 colours and would never be able to work without white. White is a crucial colour for me. The glorious pigment of colour come alive when I add white. My wonderful tutors from Michaelis School of Art in the 70’ - Stanley Pinker, Gavin Young, Cecil Skotness, Helmut Starke - all influence my work and I will be forever grateful for the privilege of having been taught by them. My art works are so often a series of disassociated elements which weave a story of delight and intrigue. I invite you to dip into the works and see the series of contradictions and juxtaposed fragments of my life, past memories and my sense of being African today.

KEVIN COLLINS 2021

KEVIN COLLINS CERAMIC PLATES

KEVIN COLLINS

FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE ASPARAGUS Oil on Canvasa 120 x 80 cm The work is inspired by one of those very contemporary accidents of auto-correct in a WhatsApp message exchange with a dear friend, Anna, in which I ask her if it is still valid to be painting my own version of the rather romantic notion: Four figures in the Book of Revelations who symbolize the evils to come at the end of the world. The figure representing Conquest rides a white horse; War, a red horse; Famine, a black horse; and Plague, a pale horse. They are often called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Of course my auto correct would never recognise Apocalypse but rather the more frequently used Asparagus. Well needless to say, Anna was delighted - so I added the asparagus to the painting - and there you have it!

NYAMBO MASAMARA

ABOUT NYAMBO MASAMARA A Rwandan refugee, living in South Africa, Nyambo MasaMAra is a versatile multi-disciplinary artist, fabric and fashion designer, working in a range of media and across platforms. Nyambo is a pseudonym derived from his totemic relationship to the national cattle of Rwanda, with the elegant long horns. They are accorded royal status in his homeland. His highly acclaimed fashion brand is MASAMARA. The artist’s work is informed by his life experiences. One of 13 children, he was born a mixed heritage couple in Rwanda before the genocide. His family was forced to flee to the DRC in 1994, and continued to move between Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. At the age of 13, he was sent overland by his family to join his older brother, who was working as a car-guard in South Africa. He was accorded refugee status in South Africa. He attended High School and College in Cape Town. Cape Town is his home. An accountant by training, he practices as a professional fashion designer and now artist. He is 29. THE ARTIST AND HIS FOCUS Nyambo MasaMara is young, charismatic and visionary. His work is the ultimate attestation to his personality – vibrant, exploratory, resilient and transformative, but deeply considered and utterly routed in his pan-African physical and spiritual identity. While his fashion design evokes a vivid reification of the best of Africa: Pan-/Trans-/Uni-African, it is all-encompassing in identity, borrowing and transforming visually and iconographically. He designs and prints his own fabric - referencing the kaleidoscopic and ubiquitous signature Ankara wax print of Africa. And classically tailors his pieces into a deconstructed | [re]constructed statement. Nyambo MasaMara locates himself in a Pan-African identity, while still acknowledging his liminality - between-ness, transformative transience, perpetual movement, and searching and... physical homeless- and state-less-ness, but a spiritual centred ness. As all refugees, he remains in limbo, an outsider, and an ‘alien’. And yet the beauty of form and colour, and his personal optimism, and spiritual evocations ulitimately transcend his painful circumstances. This, his debut exhibition, signals a transition from spectacular fashion, to a profound visual arts embarkation. The exhibition, entitled BEYOND BORDERS, incorporates four photographic and seven sculptural works.

BEYOND BORDERS: THE DEBUT EXHIBITION

Consisting of four photographs, and seven sculptures - three torsos, a motorbike, and three skulls - BEYOND BORDERS, is part of a group exhibition at the new Jaffer Modern in Green Point, titled Art of Everyday Things, and marks the debut of fashion designer Eli Gold of MasaMara as visual artist NYAMBO MASAMARA. While Eli was invited by the curators to exhibit his fashion work in line with the theme of the exhibition, his contribution evolved into BEYOND BORDERS and the launch of the artist. Interestingly, not one of his spectacular garments is available for viewing, or purchase on the exhibition, as the artist wants to secure a discreet persona as artist (his career as MasaMara, the designer continues unabated). Instead, his fashion-wear is incorporated into art works – integrated as part of the narrative. BEYOND BORDERS, is a profound and haunting experience: Set in a post-Apocalyptic space, the 4-part photographic sequence follows the route of a lone traveller, and some-time companion. In this body of work, the journey morphs into an Afro-futurist, potentially dystopian, statement, where the traveller / nomad is placed in an indefinable earth-landscape, cracked and barren, and frozen in narrative with each successive photographic sequence. Drawing on his fashion background, both travellers and objects - like the sculptural works - are all encased in MasaMara spectacular digitally rendered brilliant geometric patterned fabric. Here MasaMara’s fabrics and couture - the alluring vestments of fashion - are discarded for a carapace (moulded from MasaMara fabric), a body shield that protects his travellers, and their spiritual totems, from adversity. The BEYOND BORDERS concept not only engages the Pan-African traveller, depicted in proto-African fabrics and clothing, but is also a spiritual traveller, a space traveller, equipped with protective space helmet and totemic items. The dusty environment not only depicts an antithetically abandoned Homeland but an indefinable and liminal NoMansLand, where quite literally no-one ever belongs. Ultimately the feeling is one of intense mystery, and an all-too-recognisable future for a world that has lived through a recent pandemic and is enduring the harsh consequences of climactic alteration. KATHY BERMAN 2021

NYAMBO MASAMARA

BEYOND BORDERS

PHOTOGRAPHS

NYAMBO MASAMARA. The Promise. 2021 1/5 Framed Photograph Premium Satin Giclee 594x841 mm

NYAMBO MASAMARA. The Seer. 2021 13 1/5 Framed Photograph Premium Satin Giclee 594x841 mm

NYAMBO MASAMARA

BEYOND BORDERS

PHOTOGRAPHS

NYAMBO MASAMARA. Umhambi, (the Traveller 1) 2021 1/5 Framed Photograph Premium Satin Giclee 594x841 mm

NYAMBO MASAMARA. Umhambi, (the Traveller 2). 2021 14 1/5 Framed Photograph Premium Satin Giclee 594x841 mm

NYAMBO MASAMARA BEYOND BORDERS INSTALLATION 3 x TORSOS 4 x SKULLS 1 X MOTORBIKE

NYAMBO MASAMARA. Spirit-Rider. 2021

NYAMBO MASAMARA. Beyond Borders Installation. 2021

NYAMBO MASAMARA BEYOND BORDERS

NYAMBO MASAMARA. 2021 One Eye on Information One Eye in the Soul.

NYAMBO MASAMARA. 2021 ‘Mugongo Wahetse Intore’ (‘The back that carried the Chosen One’) - two views

NYAMBO MASAMARA. 2021 ‘Akanyoni katagurutse Ntikamenya Iyo Bweze' (‘The Closer to the Sun I Travelled)

BEYOND BORDERS: IN CONVERSATION WITH NYAMBO MASAMARA PHOTOGRAPHS The Promise, depicts a lone traveller, clad in a (MasaMara) worksuit, with helmet completely obscuring the face, bent double with the weight of his/her/their undertaking, and baggage. Piercing white-(sun)light breaks through the clouds behind (him), almost pushing the traveller forward, or downward, driving the traveller forward on (his) journey to a new land, filled with promise. Umhambi, (the Traveller 1), depicts two travellers, and a motorbike, in the red cracked no-mans-land. One is pushing the overladen bike. The other rides it. All characters in the image - human and objects - are covered in the signature fabric / skin / shell, including the baggage and the motorbike. In Umhambi, (the Traveller 2), one of the travellers sits on a chair in the wasteland, and remonstrates with a relic of another era, a bulbous television set – information, knowledge, depiction -real / unreal… Can the traveller truly discern the reality from myth, hope, promise of a better future? As the artist elaborates: “On the journey, the traveller picks up people, knowledge, information. Good and bad.” The traveller (the young artist?) needs to sift through it, all. Hopefully emerging wiser, rising above adversity, but never free of the pain endured during the adversity. The final image in the series shows the uniformed traveller unmasked/unhelmeted staring into a mirror. A haunting spectre reflects back at the traveller. This is Maso Yerekwa (The Seer). The artist notes: “Once you take that step (beyond the borders), you get to see your true self – understand who you are and who you are meant to be. Who you see there, might not be the one others want to see, or what you were expecting to see reflected back at you. This is not an easy journey.”

BEYOND BORDERS: IN CONVERSATION WITH NYAMBO MASAMARA SCULPTURES The first sculpture, entitled The Closer to the Sun I Travelled comes from a Rwandan proverb – Akanyoni katagurutse Ntikamenya Iyo Bweze is a helmeted torso bearing the baggage, and orb-shaped symbols of Hope and Promise, of the Traveller. As the artist explains, with another proverb: ‘The bird that doesn’t fly does not know where the wheat grows’: “Sometimes you go to look for wheat - or a better life, or future - and you get there … and it is not as promised.” With the second torso, the figure is encumbered by the symbols of knowledge, or, more precisely, information. A television set replaces the head. Titled: One eye on Information… One eye in the Soul, it speaks of: “How we can travel around the world without moving but get to stand in shoes of those everywhere – we can see what’s happening in Congo, Sudan… everywhere. But you have to be careful, because what you see is not necessarily what is there.” The final torso is different in bulk: ‘Mugongo Wahetse Intore’ (‘The back that carried the Chosen one’) is superficially less encumbered. A female torso, it is struck through with spears. A small skull hovers above the figure. “She is”, the artist explains, “the shield protecting the warrior. She bears a calabash on her back (the ‘Chosen One’). “In Rwandan culture, to break the calabash, is to bring bad luck: When it breaks you curse yourself. She is shielding the calabash – the Chosen One. All the spears coming through her. She is not moving. She is standing still, protecting what is being protected.” And the motorbike: Is the Spirit-Rider – the Driving force of the Spirit. As the artist explains: “This is the travelling spirit that existed - and is still in existence. I wanted to show what happened to the Spirit through the journey; what caused the Spirit to move from place to place. This is all decoded in each of the works.”

KATHY BERMAN 2021

JEANIUS EXCHANGE

ABOUT JEANIUSXCHANGE ACE NONO

Born and practising in Langa townships, Ace studied graphic design at CPUT, but has found his metier in up-cycling conventional clothing into original art works. Adopting a style reminiscent of Jean Michel Basquiat, Ace allows himself free reign with each work. For Ace, every item of clothing and found object presents itself as a surface to leave his mark upon. Each work is original - a spectacular wearable art item. Deeply committed to his community, Ace works constantly every day and incorporates young township dwellers into his daily eartmaking processes, running workshops for them in art, craft and design.

JEANIUS PLATFORM (ACE) LANGA THREADS

BESPOKE STREET ART2WEAR BY ACE FROM LANGA INSPIRED BY JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT

JACKETS X 5 JEANS X 3

JEANIUS PLATFORM (ACE) LANGA THREADS

BESPOKE STREET ART2WEAR BY ACE FROM LANGA INSPIRED BY JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT

JEANIUS PLATFORM (ACE) LANGA THREADS

BESPOKE STREET ART2WEAR BY ACE FROM LANGA INSPIRED BY JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT

PETRUS SEKELE

PETRUS SEKELE WOODEN STICKS

PETRUS SEKELE lives and works in Limpopo. His witty figurative walking sticks follow the woodcarving tradition (including walking-sticks) of his forebears from the region. Petrus, however, adds ironic contemporary iconography rendered in vibrant painted designs. With a Standard 5, he made his way to Johannesburg and worked for 30 years in an ice-cream factory. When he was retrenched, he made his way back to his roots: woodcarving

PETRUS SEKELE WALKING STICKS

COAST & KOI

COAST & KOI LUXURY SHOES X 15

Two of Five

These original slippers are hand-made in Cape Town. Each slipper is an original design work.

COAST & KOI LUXURY SHOES

KATHY BERMAN +27 82 808 3712