WASHBOARDS AND MIRRORS
The Collages of Zakes Mda The Viewing Room Art Gallery at St. Lorient / 16th Oct - 27th November
Famo Series 7, Acrylics on canvass and mirrors, 50.8 x 40.64cm
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ome of the works in this collection are collages of acrylic on canvas, fabric, newsprint, mirrors, and other threedimensional found objects. They celebrate the coalescence and sometimes the clash of materials and traditions of South Africa on one hand, and the Appalachian region of the USA on the other. The washboard in its three-dimensionality is an important object of the collage – adding sculptural elements to a painting.
There is a washboard factory in Logan Ohio, a neighbouring town to Athens Ohio, where I live. It is the only washboard factory left in North America, as people in the USA no longer use them for washing clothes since the introduction of washing machines either at home or at laundromats. In South Africa the American-type washboard was never really popular even before the days of washing machines. People used wasplank instead, smoothed flat timber. The washboard in my paintings is part of the assembly of conceptual three-dimensional found objects from the southeast Ohio Appalachian region.
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Famo Series 8, Acrylics on canvass and mirrors, 50.8 x 40.64cm
Part of the mixed media include African fabrics and newsprint, both from South Africa and Lesotho. Each painting functions as a narrative of domestic, gender and workplace tensions. So, who buys washboards from the Logan factory? Souvenir collectors and musicians. The washboard is a musical instrument, traditionally used in jazz, zydeco, skiffle, and jug band music. My wife, Gugu, and I played washboards with a blue-grass band at the Logan Washboard Festival one year. One of the paintings titled The Washboard and the Kora portrays a band playing the two instruments from the diverse cultures of Appalachia on one hand and of Africa on the other. A lot of my work pays homage to performance – particularly dance and music – in a manner these art forms function as a healing force in society – for instance the Healers’ Concert series. Some are a tribute to my friend, the late horn-man Hugh Masekela. Hence you will see a lot of trumpet, especially in the series titled Jazz in Sepia.
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