“Central to this body of work is my use of various decommissioned currencies as an aesthetic
material,” explains Machona, “in an attempt to link historic and contemporary trends of African diasporic migration on the continent.”
Cross Border Trader Performance, 2010.
About:
Gerald Machona is a Zimbabwean born Visual artist With an (MFA) Masters Degree in Fine Art in Sculpture from Rhodes University and holds a Bachelors degree in Fine art from the University of Cape Town, which he completed at the Michaelis School of fine arts in 2009-2010.
Cross Border Trader Performance (detail), 2010.
In 2013 Machona featured in Mail and Guardian’s 200 Young South African’s supplemental and was selected by Business Day and the Johannesburg Art Fair in 2011 as one of the top ten young African artists practicing in South Africa. Machona works with sculpture, performance, new media, photography and Film, and the most notable aspect of his work is his innovative use of currency—particularly decommissioned Zimbabwean dollars—as an aesthetic material.
People from far away (video), 2012.
Machona’s current work engages with issues of migration, social interaction and xenophobia in South Africa, and explores the creative limits of visual art production through the use of decommissioned currency as a key medium. He has participated in group exhibitions such as Making way at the Standard Bank Art Gallery, Johannesburg (2013), The Night Show, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town (2011); The Geography of Somewhere, Stevenson Gallery in Johannesburg (2011); and US II, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa (2010).
Ndiri Afronaut.
Machona is also a recipient of a Mellon scholarship and is a member of the Visual and Performing Arts of Africa research group at Rhodes University.
Represented by Goodman Gallery Joburg, SA