Exhibition review.
‘20 Crowndale Mews’ is a solo exhibition by Luyanda Zindela, that forms part of the ‘Snapping to attention’ conference by the SARCHI chair. I was fortunate enough to attend the opening and hear the artist talk about the work as well as the process. The exhibition falls a part of Zindela’s PHD practical. I have not engaged with Zindela’s previous work or writing, even while writing this.
I was even more fortunate to witness just a sliver of the process as Zindela’s student.
Being a visual art student and knowing the artist as a teacher and assessor gave me a unique experience of his work. As a writer, I try and be as objective as possible, presenting strengths and weaknesses as well as expressing my point of view. In most cases it can be difficult to connect to the subject matter of a body of work and thus I struggle to find strengths beyond technical skills. This was not an issue for ‘20 Crowndale Mews’.
The works display an innate knowledge of what needs to be in artwork to communicate its message and what can be left out. Looking at the drawings on both sheet and wood, there are blank silhouettes and spaces around the figures. I believe this links back to the artist’s concept of memory and time. Zindela uses his own face to reimagine memories of his father. While the artist may have memories, there were no photographs and visual references until recently.
The large vinyl wall held a collection of family photographs. Some of which were ruined in certain areas. Artworks were then displayed on this vinyl wall creating a complex contrast between a semblance of truth and a personal experience.
In an episode of the Wild Geese podcast, host Anna Howard delves into the different meanings of the word time. I found this portion to be extremely relevant to this exhibition because Anna recounts an Irish proverb that translates to ‘Time is a good storyteller’. I believe Zindela’s work really highlights that time isn’t linear. It isn’t factual but rather something that can change and morph into different stories.
Another play of time in Zindela’s work is process. The artist spoke about the pressure on artists, especially on social media, to keep pushing out work and consistently posting. I firmly agree but it’s important to note that the internet isn’t the only thing that favours immediate results, but society does too.
The starting point of the exhibition was the large fabric drawing that took two and a half months to complete. All the figures were hand drawn using various hatch marks. This technique was built as a way for the artist to live with the practice. This is what makes Zindela’s work really resonate with me. Art can be many things, a career, a commodity, activism, but it has the potential to be a way of thinking, processing and living.
Grief, guilt, fear and uncertainty are emotions that take time to process and grapple with. More so, these emotions may leave and return at any moment. I believe this sort of grappling and non linear way of being relates to Zindela’s practice. He stated that he views his works as part of a process rather than looking at it on a show to show or project to project basis.
I’d like to end off with a quote from the artist: “Drawing in this study has not been used as a medium of representation, but a site to enter memories that can’t be verified because the archival materials are no longer there”.