UN_LEARN, MY SOUL. Paintings by Asanda Kupa. At Eclectica Contemporary, until November 5. DANNY SHORKEND reviews.
ASANDA KUPA’S paintings are captivating, drawing the viewer into a dance of forms, narrative content and colour that sings, augmented by strong draughtsmanship. Indeed, his paintings exhibit a high degree of both conceptual and aesthetic appeal.
In conversation with the artist, what became evident is his use of Xhosa titles, which he says are used for the very’ untranslatability’ and ‘incommensurability’ concerning his ideas, save in his mother tongue. That is, he is interested in re-employing conventional signs in new and playful ways. In this sense, he uses traditional African motifs – ancestral worship, the slaughtered goat for ritual purposes and other pertinent aspects of Xhosa culture, but then shifts their meanings by juxtaposing such signs in unexpected ways that are not traditional as such.
The artist circumvents the usual meanings and bearers of cultural truth, and suggests alternative meanings. The artist enjoins one, as it were, to unlearn culture, to start afresh, to find exciting ways through which to reignite static meanings and invest them with the potential to widen the arc of obvious associations.
In fact, he says – and I concur – that the very scratchy, generalised or rather non-particularised facial expressions and features – mere dabs of colour with no hint of specificity and individuality – that this portends to the universality of spirituality, that spirituality has no particular name or face and indeed, colour. In such respects, local culture should not blind one to the overlaps between cultures and some fundamental philosophical (and ideological) equivalents between various systems or modes of being and doing. That the soul takes flight within a particular culture as part of world consciousness.
Yet, his work is not only about the flying, dancing, singing spirit-beings, but also carries with it darker overtones. Doors that lead no-where, but to a dark abyss; the pernicious contour of ideological systems of control and black, browns and greys possibly override the flighty use of primary coloured streaks, strokes and dabs, so that inertia and freedom co-exist.
Thus, although Kupa attempts to dismantle knowledge-systems in order to derive a higher order beyond a narrow cultural vision, at the same time this appeal to universality is fraught with tension, struggle, even pain. The very body language inherent in the narratives of each painting suggests figures that surge forth in an attempt to defy gravity, as some figures carry sticks, look to the flight of birds and are embroiled with the lives of domesticated animals. There is a tension between light and dark - perhaps indicative of all good painting – which I would argue, invites a resolution within the well-coordinated conceptual structures.
He the artist is both a spokesperson for Africa, in particular South Africa, and yet does “speak” of – or rather points to – a sort of universality, (a) culture, (a) race, a bridge of communication – that may unite all peoples, regardless of race or creed, without necessarily foreclosing on traditional, received knowledge systems and clams.
That is obviously to difficult if not well nigh impossible to achieve and perhaps requires precisely the unlearning of ones own upbringing – even education – in order to then reassess ones values and in the process find a harmony that has no boundaries.
Whether this is plausible, so that such paintings perhaps speak simply in the hope that one can transcend ones own prejudices, both personal and in terms of the ones learnt manners of behaviour, and at least find commonalities and reconstruct based on that.
Whether such a world consciousness can be forged and whether opposing sides learn to trust by laying downs arms, to use but one example, is one would hope not simply naïve. Many artists’ believe that there is an innate goodness inherent in all, both within the self, between bothers and sisters and encompassing “distant relatives” as well. A tall order.
A thought-provoking series of paintings that are easy on the eye and optimistic, conveying my sense of the warmth of the artist himself.
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