Barbicows (The lekker lewe)- 2025

Oil on canvas. H79.5 x W99.6 cm

There is, particularly in the Southern hemisphere a predilection for cooking and eating meat on an open fire in the outdoors. Where the sun shines, most households have a barbecuing (or braaing) mechanism. Cooking meat on an open fire harks back to prehistoric hunting days and is still a hardwired necessity in today’s world. Vegetarians have adapted to this ritual and roast vegetarian sausages, of course separated from their meat-eating guests. In both South Africa and Australia (and presumably elsewhere) barbecuing takes on a religious fervour, particularly for men – who see this as the culmination of the hunt and the presentation of their trophies. It is also an excuse to overindulge in beer drinking or imbibing wine while discussing sport when overseeing this sacred ritual.

Both South African and Australian societies promote the custom as an integral part of their own cultures. This applies in other parts of the world as well. Well-off South Africans are so fond of eating meat that one could term them vleisbefok! (addicted to eating meat).

This ‘herd’ of ‘Barbicows’ is set against an indeterminate semi-abstract field. The instruments of cooking have themselves become the offering to be cooked, their juices (now bleached white) dripping off the edge of the floating surface. The raised but disguised central dimensional text is a reference to the manner in which cows are branded and is also an authoritative (if foreign) statement defining the imperative act of cooking meat.

Advertisers sell their products using the barbecuing ritual as a backdrop, whether it pertains to outdoor clothing, camping gear or simply the purveying of alcohol.