Homage to Myself ,2017
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Notes : In his Tribute Series, Sam Nhlengethwa works with carefully selected images from public media such as magazines and posters. These found images are appropriated, reproduced, cut up, and fragmented to create new images, relationships and meanings, combining printed material with photography, drawing and painting.The series pays homage to significant creatives – visual artists and jazz musicians – who influenced and inspired Nhlengethwa. Impelled by people and their spaces, he recreates the works of his favourite artists and places them in a constructed environment, an imagined space, giving the viewer a new context in which to experience the works. By recreating works of other artists, he challenges the concept of authorship and the limits of representation.
The environments in which the artworks are placed are contemporary interiors, suffused with a clean, minimalist aesthetic, characteristic of the artist's dapper personal style. The spaces are void of people with the artworks providing the only figurative suggestion. Nhlengethwa talks about a sense of loneliness that artists encounter when working in their studios for long periods, isolated from family and friends. This sense of quiet and solitariness is poignantly reflected in the emptiness of the interiors he conjures, creating a soothing environment with a calming atmosphere.Featured artists include South African greats such as Gerard Sekoto, Dumile Feni, William Kentridge and Marlene Dumas, amongst others, while international influences like Romare Bearden and Henri Matisse also occupy the series. Having started the project in 2008, the third and final Tributes exhibition was held at Goodman Gallery in 2014. At the end of the long period of creative output, Nhlengethwa returns the gaze onto himself and, in Homage to Myself, creates a final tribute to his own significant legacy.
Ruarc Peffers
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