COLLECTIVE DELUSION

Artists:

• Ley Mboramwe
• Loyiso Mkize
• Mia Darling
• Theko Boshomane
• Amy Lindeque

The winter has arrived once more. Another summer gone and the sighs of the dams, as they feel the rain once more, echo the relief felt by us all. Twenty-five years have now come and passed since the first election of democratic South Africa in 1994 and we have once more cast our votes. Around the world and in South Africa, we become collective in expression through our shared experiences. There is a converse danger, however, of the delusion that comes through sharing in today’s world of social media and our constant ‘online’ status. Filtered, we can present an illusory existence that sets up veiled truths and untruths. In this way, we are in danger of becoming embroiled in a collective delusion of falsehood and living up to unrealistic expectations. To counteract this, there is a need to step away, get out, walk onward. Is there a middle ground that can embrace the productivity of networked associations that allow for strangers to become lifelong friends, the opportunity to learn and challenge through visibility and expressions of difference, and the sinister flipside of disillusionment and isolation?

Through art – making and viewing, sharing and experiencing – a space for expression and exploration can exist. Ley Mboramwe’s paintings are filled with frenetic energy and sensory colours that move and excite, transporting the viewer to new contexts. Loyiso Mkize’s evocative re-presentations reimagine our contexts, our dreams and our existence as entities that can weave narratives together. The work by Mia Darling engages the potentials of playfulness and the uncanny; by riffing off what we recognise across her pastel palette, she subverts our assumptions to be sure we’re paying attention. Theko Boshomane’s creations push our understanding of embodiment and how we might relate to each other as beings. This exhibition asks for us to take time to evaluate and take stock of what is taken for granted through delusion. However, the works also envelope us, transporting us into an alternate realm of engagement where we can collectively imagine along with the artists.

Twenty-five years on from 1994, we must continue to strive for equality, empowerment and empathy. By acknowledging the delusions that we face, collectively we can push for truth, despite the vastness and variety of our individual experiences.

LOYISO MKIZE

Loyiso Mkize is a South African visual artist and was born in Butterworth, 19th March 1987. He studied at CPUT in Cape Town where he achieved his diploma in graphic design in 2009. In 2015 he founded his own visual arts and communication company Loyiso Mkize Art (Pty) Ltd which publishes the energetic South African superhero comic book, KWEZI. This follows his long standing and consistently growing career in the fine arts.

His ability to create visual art throughout the varied arenas he participates in, carries with it an intention to communicate ideas that he finds most important in his life, the most prominent of which is preserving the African identity. His life work embodies the message of self-awareness, acknowledgment, strength and radical presence. It is in this spirit that he hope his work can perhaps create a platform in which we can all, communicate freely.

MIA DARLING

Mia Darling was born in Johannesburg and grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. She recently graduated from Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2018. Darling works with the unusual and playful medium of plasticine. Her plasticine paintings are created by using her hands as the paintbrush and perspex or glass as the canvas. Darling’s plasticine works are colourful and painterly explorations into beauty, childhood and body image. She is most excited by the fantastical, the girly, the romantic, and fascinated by all things pink.

Darling’s works often revolve around female nudes, drawing from Western canons and then doing away with the rules and restrictions of the past through the medium of plasticine. She navigates the body along with its modern and age-old issues, those which are influenced by society. She paints about her own bodily experiences alongside doves, cascading roses and kittens.

LEY MBORAMWE

Ley Mboramwe hails from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He completed his degree in Fine Art at the ‘Academie des Beaux’ in Kinshasa (the centre of Africa).

His life experience in the Congo, its suffering, beauty, politics, culture and economic circumstances is evident in his work. Through his work he has tried to convey rhythm, emotion and freedom of the human spirit. His silhouetted figures are not only a representation of the physical self, but rather an amalgamation of flesh and spirit. The spirit as something in search of a tangible tether to land.

The human body is used as a means of storytelling and a reflection of life. Where stories, such as looting, hunger, disease, nightmares, dreams and the joys of human existence are theoretically portrayed. Mboramwe attempts to transfigure flesh into spirit, flesh into the depths of human suffering and happiness, flesh into the inner beauty and despair of human life. He uses the body as a mirror to the soul.

THEKO BOSHOMANE

Theko Boshomane was born in Polokwane (Limpopo) and now lives in Soweto, Johannesburg. He obtained a B-tech in fine art in 2012 and has since participated in several art exhibitions, including the Absa Art Gallery, Everard Read

Art Gallery and the Pretoria Art Museum. He participated in various Art Fairs like Turbine Art Fair and the FNB Joburg Art Fair. He has also showcased at the Absa Atelier Art Competition (2013), where his work was exhibited as part of the top 100 artworks and Sasol New Signatures Art Competition (2013), where he was awarded a merit award.

Theko Boshomane uses his work to self-heal and overcome childhood experiences of being bullied. He explores the impact of a misunderstood childhood and its lasting influence on how he interacts socially, spiritually and emotionally in his adult years. His work is often an imaginary world in which the viewer is invited to both observe and become a part of his healing process. His mediums range from drawings to paintings, printmaking, video work and installations.

AIMEE LINDEQUE

Aimee Lindeque’s art can be concisely summarised as intricate and imaginative works created in an eclectic style. She describes her creative process as a form of intuitive auto-pilot wherein she allows images, textures and ideas from her imagination and subconscious to flow into works which have a dense doodle-like quality. Her work is partly inspired by the onslaught of imagery individuals experience in the information age.

In 2017 she graduated from the UCT Michaelis School of Fine Art with a major in sculpture. Aimee is currently producing and exhibiting work in watercolour and ink. Their colour arrangement and focus on line detail is inspired by comic book artists such as Moebius. Aesthetically, her work experiments with the visual effects of detail and how cluttered imagery can create different interpretations depending on how far the viewer is from the artwork.