Usurper – Zebra On Baroque Couch
Oil and sand on canvas – 110 cm x 110 cm – Framed in a dark burgundy red floating frame
Sasol New Signatures finalist artwork 2023
In this painting, I am continuing a theme I began several years ago exploring animals in human spaces, specifically where we as humans live, our homes and interiors.
I wish to engage the viewer in an interesting dialogue of curiosity, what is a zebra doing on a couch in a grand home, rather than out on the African plain where it belongs?
I deliberately chose an interior setting reminiscent of the Victorian age, the use of ornate decoration on the couch is a means of creating visual interest. I work in a traditional, realistic way to encourage us to see this tableaux as real instead of imaginary. It must seem believable, even though we know it is not.
I hint at the era of colonialism in this particular work. In our world a zebra does not belong so comfortably in our human abode, yet it is relaxing on a couch as though at home. I see the zebra as a usurper of our human space, in answer to the colonial appropriation of the natural world.
I used oil on canvas as my preferred medium, I find oils easier to work with than acrylics most of the time, particularly for natural world subject matter where the colours tend to stay true once dry. I used sand texture paste underneath which helps liven up the brushwork and colours, as dry brush techniques lightly dragged across the textured surface allow the colour underneath to filter through.
