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Oil on canvas entitled I love Jimi Hendrix, but I hate teen boys with posters from music (I). -
Oil of canvas entitled Well, anyway, this is Wonderwall. -
Oil on canvas entitled I can't even look at Surfa Rosa with a straight face (portrait of Jordy Smith saying "Howzit China"). -
Oil on canvas entitled Self portrait as a car. -
Oil on canvas entitled Self Portrait with father (painting about emotional insight). -
Oil on canvas entitled If he's shared (or god forbid made) a hotline bling inspired meme in the last six months that's a red flag. -
Oil on canvas entitled Every time a private schooled white boy wants to deconstruct Kanye West lyrics at me (seminar style) at a social gathering I lose 2-3 years of my life expectancy. -
Oil on canvas entitled Portrait of the man who wrote the lyrics: "I could say, shouldn't you have gotten a couple piercings and decided maybe that you were gay.".
EDITED BY Amelia Brown
Emerging talent Fanie Buys only graduated from Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2017, but is already proving he’s one to watch with his first solo exhibition This Man.
Fanie’s quirky, painterly works feature portraits derived from family photographs and celebrity tabloids, in reference to Fanie’s inner confrontation with the looming acquaintance he both seeks to impress and ignore in the process of unashamedly becoming himself.
We got the lowdown on his first body of work.
What were your influences in creating This Man?
My biggest influence was spending a month on Facebook messaging this guy through his depression while working in Europe, and then on his return, him telling me that he has a girlfriend! I would not have cared about his gaping emotional abyss if I had known my abyss would have remained unseen. There was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth after which I picked up my brushes to serve my strongest natural instinct: passive aggression. (I’m a Scorpio.)
And in your work in general?
A lot of my favourite paintings contain some sense of personal narrative that has been decontextualised from the first person, like Tracey Emin’s If I had to be honest I’d rather not be painting (a work which elegantly depicts crude copulation). I felt like this was my opportunity to work through a bunch of animosity I felt towards men who don’t have to be attracted to me, but who I feel (totally irrationally) should be because I’ve made an effort to get them to like me. And through making this work I have realised that emotional manipulation is not how you establish healthy human relationships. In a sense, it is a spot of art therapy. Broadly, this has been an indictment against masculinity, and a slow realisation that includes me.
Your paintings are flanked by highly imaginative titles and related written work in the form of a zine. What is your relationship to both painting and writing and how did the two aid in the creation of This Man?
I feel like my relationship towards both writing and painting are similar in that I’m not particularly good at either of them. I mean I suppose I’m not the first person to invent idiosyncratic writing or impasto painting (when I feel particularly arrogant, I go about saying that I’m the poor man’s Ian Grose, but the truth is I’m not even that good). These are the fields where I feel I have the greatest scope to capture my own way of seeing the world.
Writing and painting mirror the two most important parts of my creative process. Namely trying to spot things other people don’t see and the manic internal monologue that drives me. I think that by including writing, it saves my work from just being bad paintings of pop stars.
Does your work convey a message?
Say no to boys.
At the moment you are both a junior school art teacher and a practising artist. What are the challenges and opportunities involved in working multiple jobs? How does this impact your art?
I wish I could just produce a shiny and witty answer for this, but in actual fact it’s exhausting! I had a really hectic lesson once involving a great amount of shouting, (“No, stop flicking water at each other!) and I went back to the studio and slept on the floor for an hour before I started working.
It’s nice to have the financial stability of a job because in all honesty unless you are either immediately an amazing artist (which very few people are) or you have very wealthy and supportive parents, you often have to balance your practice with two or three part-time jobs. Teaching means I can immerse myself in a creative environment full time, whereas most people work in the service industry or in retail, which means they have to change gear. I am perpetually in the art world, even if it is the art world that deals with powder paint and papier-mâché.
Don’t miss your last chance to catch This Man on until 24 February at 99 Loop in Cape Town. Can’t make the show? Follow Fanie on Instagram and keep up to date with our local events to look forward to here.
