A Transposed Landscape 1990

Oil on canvas
180 x 225 cm
(After Alvarez Bravo: Striking Worker, assassinated, 1934—Photograph)

IFA LETHU Foundation Collection

Mnr Die Ware Jakob (‘The Genuine Article’) 1986–1990

Oil on canvas and mixed media: Oak frame housing, three painted panels, Burchell’s zebra skin and rubber bullet projectile
102.5 x 149 cm

IFA LETHU Foundation Collection

The Knave of Clubs 1986–1987

Oil on canvas
100 x 76.3 cm

The image depicts a South African policemen wielding a sjambok (whip). He looms over his crushed victim. The painting conveys a sense of the extreme violence perpetrated by representatives of the state. We perceive the policeman from behind and so bear witness to the event. The surface is divided vertically into the traditional three zones found in landscape painting: the foreground with the policeman dominates the whole canvas, the middle ground with the victim whose frozen arm stretches upward almost in the revolutionary “AMANDLA” (power) salute, and the upper background consists of a lowering curtain of dull black (encaustic) impenetrable paint with a fringe or piping made up of the three colours of the then banned African National Congress (ANC) at the bottom.

The policeman is aware of the life and death ideological struggle being waged in Apartheid South Africa and distantly sees the approaching tide of liberation which must be annihilated at all costs.

Boere Wapens 1652— (‘Boer Weapons 1652—’) #1 1986

Assemblage: Burchell’s zebra skin, plastic whip, Bible
and brass plaque
100 x 30 cm