Part of the "Heritage Collection"
Acrylic on canvas
910mm x 610mm
The painting features bold splashes and drips of paint layered across the canvas, creating a sense of movement and tension. Shards of mirror are embedded within the surface, catching light and reflecting the viewer’s own image, while their jagged arrangement forms the petals and leaves of a protea. Textures vary from smooth washes to thick, impasto marks, giving the work depth and dimensionality. The composition moves from areas of dense, fractured detail to more open, luminous spaces, guiding the eye across the canvas in a rhythm of fragmentation and emergence.
This work doesn't only interrogate the proud postcard version of South Africa, but also pays homage to the weight of its history. A layered history of pain, resilience, and transformation. The broken mirror pieces symbolise fractured lives and the weight of memory, while their formation into the protea conveys hope, endurance, and renewal. Purple hints at ongoing struggles women in particular face, yet the interpretation is left open, allowing viewers to engage with their own reflections. Through the tension between fragmentation and growth, the painting meditates on collective trauma and the persistence of life. Accompanied with an Ode the combined piece evokes a gentle but firm reminder that this land and its people deserve to be silmutaneously honoured and mourned, respectfully.
The Ode
The land that learned early
how to drown out the cries
yet in the dualities of life,
it remembers the weight
before it remembers the names.
From light to dark,
dark to light.
From seed to flower,
then flower to seed.
We learned how to be,
and where not to linger
with the silence unveiling
a proverbial trigger.
Still… still with resilience,
the land carries on,
while memories cry louder
in a quietened melody,
echoing,
then fading into paths now worn smooth.
With the emergence of new identities,
not one the same.
From a fragmented past,
some shattered lives,
some hopes left unfulfilled,
reflecting a story
begging to be retold.
Your story, our story
a story to be sowed
may it be,
an ode forever owed.
Threads of an Ode
Acrylic on wooden box frame
400x400mm
