books for lovers: past, present, future (2024)

Forming part of the Sculpting Textual Bodies exhibition, this body of work draws on a bygone folk tradition of creating books out of stone to commemorate lost loved ones or to gift as tokens of affection.

A collection of hand-carved marble pieces are used to explore different stages and manifestations of the book, ranging from the unused and unopened to the worn and loved.

Invasion (2019)

Invasion: an act of breaching some geographical, bodily, or psychological barrier. To invade is a drive humans share with other species, such as plants, animals, bacteria, and viruses.

Meanwhile, the tools used for monitoring forms of invasion are entangled with our perception of self: how we look into and out of our own bodies to comprehend things that we consider far away or deep inside. This exhibition was interested in how humans have come to imagine our relation to these bewildering environments.

Ball & Claw (2010)

This body of work turned to objects of colonial import that have long held cultural significance in South Africa. These loaded pieces were investigated in terms of their contemporary currency in terms of aesthetic appeal, utilitarian value and queer potential.  This project focused on forms of playful deconstruction through which the complex nature of colonial heritage and queer transgression can be visualised.

Drawing Practice (Ongoing)

My attraction to drawing springs from its deep and, by now, quite twisted etymological roots. These are roots I often turn to.

Drawing is, first and foremost, a gesture – a process of drawing closer, drawing out, or drawing in by means of some bodily or technological intervention. We draw to represent – we illustrate, we mark, we map, and we plot. But drawing can also be that which impels someone or something to pull (to move, stir, or sweep), to withdraw (to drain, transfer, absorb, siphon, or bleed) and to attract (to mesmerise, summon, or tempt).