Isintu Sang’khohlwa/ Tradition forgot me
The city and country that I live most influence my work. Living in Johannesburg South Africa for all my life, my work is channeled from my experience of being a city boy all my life. The point that I have lived in this city all my life gets to me but I still love this place, it’s taught me a lot, good and bad, it’s a real love and hate relationship. Although Johannesburg has shaped the man I am (or becoming) it has also robbed me of the aspects of being a “Zulu man” culturally.
Isintu sang’khohlwa is an exploration of Traditional incisions specifically the type done by the Zulu clan. Incisions in the skin are done to symbolize various things like the clan one belongs to, they are done as a rite of passage for showing that a Zulu male is no longer a boy but now a man. Since I have lived in the city all my life I have never experienced any of foreign concepts, I try to explore this through this ongoing series of work.