Feelings of nostalgia occur from anything like a dress your mother used to wear, or a bumper sticker that reminds you of your parents’ (or your own) first car. These are feelings I seek to bring about in the viewer looking at my work. I am interested in photography and I work from old family photographs. Though these photographs are personal to me, we have all had similar experiences that we have captured in photographs. My figures are simplified and often made to look hazy and blurry and this depiction emphasizes the idea of memory being a very vague and elusive thing. This effect also removes the identity of the person from the original photograph, making the work universal and the figure becoming representations of anyone the viewer wishes, tied to their own memories. The use of bright vivid colours I my way of reliving those memories anew.
BKhz by Banele Khoza, Johannesburg, South Africa