FINE ART: Suzy Bell
HER painting is untitled, unsigned and undated. Her subject matter: social realism. Her colours: depressingly dark and dull.
So what if Monet said “Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.” Because masters student of Fine Art at the University of Durban-Westville, Patience Ngcobo (22), is quite honestly sick of bright colours and smiling, happy faces. In fact, sick of anything that smacks of the wafer-thin veneer of happiness and unadulterated celebration that has supposedly been born.
Her masters thesis is titled Post-apartheid Art in KwaZulu Natal. Ngcobo is making a comparative analysis of murals prior to 1994 with those of the present day, assessing the change of the country’s mood as depicted through street art. “The mood has changed, seemingly. The colours are bright and the people are always happy. I question this. The poignant reality is that not much has changed in our country, yet why has the public art changed?”
Not that Ngcobo is drowning in conspiratorial theory paranoia, she simply wants an injection of social realism. “Aids education for instance, women’s issues, worker’s issues, all with cross-cultural references,” suggests Ngcobo.
The artist admits we need to give hope to the people through street art, but questions “giving hope of things to come when they are not necessarily there”. So she paints seriously. Her first painting, sold to the Durban Art Gallery for the Jabulisa exhibition, strikes a solemn note. It shows a black crippled woman with a baby on her back.
Pat Khoza, education officer of the gallery, says: “Most young people depict dreams. Patience is deeply concerned with humanity. In her painting she reminds us that women are the people who are most exposed to the suffering. But this woman is still moving on her way to find work, even if she plants some mielies. Because she has to. It’s easier to draw pretty drawings with beautiful faces of smiling people. Patience, though, does not run away from the reality of the South African situation.”
Jabulisa, the art of KwaZulu Natal, is on at the Durban Art Gallery until December 1