Dion Cupido Exhibition at Worldart

WORDS Cheri Morris

Worldart presents a solo exhibition by Dion Cupido, featuring a graffiti take on female portraiture entitled Plain Reality.

Dion Cupido explores the pain and suffering of women and the expectation that men are exempt from emotional expression in today’s patriarchal society through his unique take on women’s portraiture. For this specific series, Dion made an open call on Facebook for his subjects – all of the women hail from Mitchells Plain, which is where he was raised by his single mother.

Dion, who is a member of the Nando’s Artists Society, isolates his subject matter to reveal only their heads in order to translate their/his own inner turmoils through a focus on their facial features. This intends to transport the viewer into the inner workings of his subjects and the themes they represent. His technique accentuates the beauty of the women, intending to cast light on the unfortunate fact that beauty is often one of the ways in which women accrue power/validation in today’s world.

Dion makes uses of graffiti techniques such as scratching and tagging to add dimension and depth to his works in both an aesthetic and emotional sense. The graffiti tagging techniques he uses are metaphorical for the struggle experienced by females of colour to be acknowledged in society, both historically and currently.

The exhibition runs until 30 March 2017 at 54 Church Street, Cape Town. For more information, visit worldart.co.za.