“My understanding of painting is the language of abstraction, and by abstraction I mean a world of ideas, a world of complex thoughts, a world of imagination. I believe that a descriptive approach is actually arming a subject. The more it is defined, the more it is reduced. Trying to stay open, works better for me when it comes to create strong links with reality, with facts, with my understanding of what it is to paint. …”
Tell Freedom is a statement in the form of an exhibition. Proof that art itself can tell the story. It is the picture of a generation that knows what it wants and does not want to be fooled with paper promises. The Apartheid may be a thing of the past, the position of many blacks is not yet equal.
In November last year I started travelling in the Caribbean region, researching the sustainability of contemporary art practices and the influence of international (exchange) projects, funding, markets and politics. During my research I will be keeping a travelogue for Africanah. My first stop in the region is Ayiti (Haiti), one of the islands in the region I have not spent any time before.
Blank Projects is an institution that I been aware of for a number of years now, and the eclectic and experimental nature of the artist they show has been consistent and imbued with a measure of a collective aesthetic. Blank Projects is a gallery that extends African artists beyond what is political, into the realm of aesthetic and the theoretical.
To him the back (of a painting) is more than a coincidental narrative; it probably even forms the plot of the story. Because Martha actually plays with space in all his works, you could call the work an example of this. But it is more. He is opening a discussion on painting as a genre and so relegating the current terminology – painting, sculpture, installation, etc. – to the past.