Once asked about their artistic ethos, Cape Town based artist Dada Khanyisa emphasised that they are “interested in social dynamics, how people relate, how they engage, how they choose to present themselves, who they choose to have around them, and the places they choose to occupy.
And when multi-disciplinary artist won THE 2022 FNB ART PRIZE, anyone who had been following their career with cynicism paid astute attention.
After a walk through the exhibition held at The Johannesburg Art Gallery in early 2024, the nuanced assemblages, collaged three-dimensional backdrops that incorporate found objects and architectural references, which are the signature of this renowned artist left an indelible mark on my psyche.
Addressing minimal artistic gestures—there is a selection of sculptures which I found intriguing, as they are at times rendered in the sleek three dimensions of a printed surfaces that only enhances the illusion of life with its sheen of escapist glamour.
Often taking their departure from from physical gestures of revolt to invisible architectures of codes of sexual identities, the work reflects on nostalgia and memories of bygone times in township love life, oscillating between revelation and erasure of those loved lives.
With titles like “iNkosi ibenathi in these polyamorous streets and between the sheets”, ‘eBree” and eBumnandini” and ‘uMpako” “aBomama bom’gidi”, Dada continually reflects on community and its varied members, the mothers, the lovers who meet a world in turmoil over sexual identity.
Depicting jovial scenes of friends pulled from street scenes, these artworks, each is a record of life in the hollow squaller of squatter camps or inner city slums.
The resolve to alcohol abuse that is characteristic of South African youth culture is also brought to the fore and questioned against other depredations of a hostile world where many reside.
Dada’s refusal to be boxed in by medium or artistic expectation, has liberated their creative practice from the stranglehold of consumer trends.
Their art might serves a social function by depicting events, situations and moments in which persecuted individuals can take refuge and form on their creative reconfiguration to serve the bodies that are bound by them.
The sculptural paintings that have become a signature style, have invoked mixed reaction from art community prone to market logic.
But can their practice become its own genre, and a creation of alternative forms of intimacy among people of diverse social origins?
Images from Artist Profiles.
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