Kyu Sang Lee

SS17
7 December – 13 January 2017
Opening Wednesday, 6 December at 18:00

Gallery MOMO Cape Town is proud to present SS17, a group exhibition showcasing the work of several emerging young artists from South Africa and the broader continent, who are challenging conventional art practices through new and exciting techniques. Spanning diverse media ranging from sculpture, painting, printmaking, to embroidery and video, each artist is forging their own idiosyncratic and distinctive path.

Threading performative elements through sculpture, photography and video, Sethembile Msezane utilises the visual language of history and mythmaking to address the paucity of black female bodies in public constructs of commemoration and monumentalisation. Bridging the gap between arts and sciences, Martin Wilson makes uses of non-traditional carbon-based materials such as organic remains, ash, charcoal, graphite and oil in his sculptural works in order to explore the chaotic, fluctuating and unpredictable spaces between so-called rational knowledge production. Tiago Rodrigues’s sculptures refer to predominantly Catholic iconography in order to critique the misappropriation of religious belief into oppressive patriarchal structures of control and penitence.

For Kenrick McFarlane, the rich history and versatility of oil paint serves as a vehicle through which to explore complex reflections on the impossible co-existence of violence and actualised humanity. Effortlessly shifting between painting, drawing, and striking, socially engaged installation, multi-media artist Modupeola Fadugba examines cultural identity, social justice, game theory, and the art world within the socio-political landscape of Nigeria and the greater global economy. In Jo Voysey’s examinations of the complex relationship between humans and animals, medicinal remedies such as Mercurochrome, charcoal tablets, Friar’s Balsam, iodine tincture, potassium permanganate, Med-Lemon, Gastropect, and copper sulphate are repurposed as extremely unconventional painting materials.

Bonolo Kavula makes use of found materials and banal objects to push the medium of printmaking into schizophrenic abstract territory, contrasting this with frequently humorous video works centered on recurring gestures and inner monologues. Mbali Dlamini uses her experiments in silkscreening techniques to explore the relationship between colour and African spirituality though printmaking. By combining watercolour and monotype processes, Amber Moir’s work facilitates a dialogue between the artist’s dual interests in painting and printmaking. Iranian-born painter Sepideh Mehraban addresses the differences between the state’s representation of events and her own lived experience in Post-Revolutionary Iran.

Working through sculpture and lithography, Stephané E. Conradie hones in on the socio-economic insights that quotidian objects of South African material culture offer into what people attach value to, and how they create meaning in the private spheres of their homes. Priscilla Kennedy’s bold embroidered female figures on keffiyeh scarfs convey issues of sexuality and women’s bodies through a conversation between her medium (a traditional Middle Eastern headdress fashioned from a square scarf, typically worn by Arab people) and the striking content of her work. Gabrielle Kruger deconstructs the traditional genre of landscape painting by manipulating paint to reflect the plasticised natural environment in the age of the Anthropocene. Kyu Sang Lee approaches his photographic process as ‘painting with light’, constructing evocative surreal imagery which draws a metaphysical parallel between the time constraints of mortality and photography.