Having sprayed her evocatively beautiful messages of social conscious across the world’s cities and exhibited in many galleries, Faith47 is arguably South Africa’s best-known globally-regarded street artist. Yet, she has never had a gallery exhibition here until now. We sent her ten questions; she answered five.
Entitled Fragments of a Burnt History, the exhibition opens at David Krut Projects on Thursday 8 November and runs until early 2013. The exhibition comprises an installation of found objects and artwork created in the artist’s studio, as well as a new series of monotypes produced in collaboration with the David Krut Print Workshop.
What is your thinking behind Fragments of a Burnt History?
The title is tragic. I’ve been picking up fragments of our past and juxtaposing them with our present, lest we forget. Our past, and our present, force us to have very short memories and very slow hearts.
South Africa has a potent mixture of unrelentless inspiration and devastating hopelessness. I think this is mixed into the colours and textures of the works.
As part of the lead up, you also did “The Long Wait” around the city of Joburg. How did you come up with and realise that project?
I’ve been watching this wait for a long time, we are all waiting. This whole country is waiting, seeing immigrants waiting in long lines, sleeping overnight to get into home affairs. Seeing the continually growing lines of men waiting for work. I had been photographing and thinking about this for a long time. It really struck me as symbolic of the deep nature of our country. My friend Alexia Webster had some great images of these waiting men and I translated them into paintings in studio, which thereafter found themselves in lines all around Johannesburg.
Why is it that you seem to have exhibited more in overseas galleries than locally?
It just happened that way. There has been a lot of interest in my work internationally for quite a few years now, whereas locally this has only been growing in the past two years.
But I also felt the need to create this body of work, this specific body of work contains images that have travelled through me because of my experience of living in this country. I don’t think I would have this Fragments of a Burnt History exhibition anywhere else but in South Africa, as I feel it relates quite specifically to issues and emotions that arise in this environment. The work might appeal to a wider audience, but I expect it will be better understood by a local demographic. It is something I felt that I needed to get out of my system, so to speak, to pay my respects to the deep pain and beauty that this county holds.
Translating street art into a gallery is always a contentious issue, dealt with in different ways by different artists. What is your approach?
The process of creating work in studio is calm, you can control the environment. It’s a lot more relaxed and you can explore your ideas in a deeper manner.
When painting outside, it’s pretty chaotic. There are many factors to consider; weather, people disturbing you, how people feel about what you’re doing. It’s allot more physically intense. You get to really breathe in the city. To feel it. There is a very direct experiential element to it as you meet such diverse people and have some pretty wild and moving experiences.
I like to hide away in my studio when I’ve had enough of the outside world. It’s meditative, I explore alchemy and conjure spirits. When I need an injection of pure energy I paint on the streets. That’s been a powerful humbling experience in my life that I cant really explain to anyone.
What’s next for you?
Off to Miami in November. Next year we have projects planned in Hawaii, London, Italy, Vienna, Nepal, Hong Kong and America so far.
David Krut Projects, 140 Jan Smuts Ave, Johannesburg, davidkrutprojects.com