South Africa talent on display at UJ

Not Set in Stone is a joint exhibition, with works by Carl Jeppe and Lwandiso Njara, on show at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) Art Gallery (Kingsway campus) from 29 June to 27 July.

In a series of drawings and sculptures, Jeppe and Njara address questions of changing socio-cultural constructs in terms of technology, expanding global relationships and exchange.

Njara’s works bring together the two spiritual-cultural realms in which he was raised, by investigating changing customs and beliefs affecting his identity, while Jeppe’s charcoal landscape drawings, devoid of vegetation or human habitation, allude to man’s power over the planet without accountability.

Both artists’ works suggest a post-apocalyptic world affected by man’s inability to find cohesion between various systems of survival and progression.

Njara spent his boyhood and years of spiritual awakening in the Mpondo Valley in rural Transkei. His Catholic schooling introduced him to Western/global ideologies and technologies, but he also lived in a cultural world of ancestral ritual slaughter where blood was spilled in honour of the ancestors.

His Christian grandmother believed that there was a place for Christianity along with that of Xhosa ancestral rituals.

“For her, both were necessary for our survival in society. This raised issues of belief and doubt in me, leading me to ask questions about my identity,” said Njara.

In his quest to understand where he finds himself in the world, his sculptures and drawings reflect his cultural beliefs and their hybridisation with western technological ways of being – the entrails of a goat may be infused with mechanical cogs, or a headless Madonna figure may guard a mine entrance.

Then, there is Jeppe who is inspired by evidence of historical events that have taken place, either naturally, like the formations of layers of rock, and their eventual erosion, or through human endeavour. His landscapes do not depict known geographical locations, although there is often reference to some form of human intervention. They invariably include events and structures in the form of holes, blocks, scaffolds, walls, dug into, erected upon, or hovering above the landscape.

“Man has immense power over the landscape. It’s all in pursuit of progress, but unfortunately there seems to be five underlying principles guiding this process – arrogance, ignorance, intolerance, incompetence and greed – no matter what great strides mankind has made in terms of technology or morality,” Jeppe said.