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Paul Emmanuel, geboren in 1969
Emmanuel, Paul (South African 1969)
Untitled - Transitions
Hand incised on exposed and processed photographic paper
70 x 70cm
Transitions is a series of painstakingly made images by Paul Emmanuel, which toured as a solo
exhibition to venues including the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution in Washington
DC, as well as the Apartheid Museum and Constitution Hill in Johannesburg to name a few. The artist's
intention of the series was to explore transitory moments in (particularly South African) masculinity -
infancy (circumcision), youth (military service), adulthood (marriage), and old age (a 90th birthday toast)
- ritualized moments that arguably shape the male identity. The images in the series were combined
as stills, with five in each set, the format itself evoking a transition and shift. Emmanuel, who was born
in Zambia, works mainly in printmaking and photography and many of his artworks have a focused
engagement with surface. The works from the Transition series, for instance, lie somewhere between
drawings and photographs. In making them, Emmanuel worked directly from photographs, carefully
copying the images onto photographic paper with a sharp blade. The result is an intricately detailed
surface of crosshatched lines, which shimmer as if the photo-realistic scenes are about to change. The
process of making these images was intensely laborious and time-consuming - it took Emmanuel three
years to complete the artworks that were exhibited as part of the Transitions show.
