Online Reporter
Langalakhe Mabhena
Zimpapers Arts and Entertainment Hub
Renowned realist artiste John Kotze will be taking his fusion of old and new collection titled “Backlash” for exhibition at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Harare from September 9 until late October.
The exhibition will take place in two phases. The first will be his more familiar work of observation drawings, the majority of it having been executed from the commencement of the novel Coronavirus Outbreak and
Thereafter.The second body of work is a series of collage works, negotiating between portraiture, object and dreamscape, with each work chronologically annotating a particular event and condition from the earliest work to settlement.
The contrast or perhaps compliment between the two groups of work, will then form the basis of the nomenclature of the body of work – within it emerging the diametric of consistency and growth, cooperating to the resultant exposition.
One of the curators of Backlash Fadzai Veronica Muchemwa said the exhibition stands as a bridge between high technical formality and creative abstraction, with the ease of the artist’s shift between the two techniques providing guaranteed appeal to the viewers.
“Embracing contradiction, the works blend cubism, expressionism, and surrealism to reflect fractured identities. They are an invitation to confront both cohesion and disarray, creating a dynamic interplay of emotion and perspective” said Muchemwa.
John Kotze was born In Malawi. He has lived and worked in Zimbabwe since 1980. His realist style finds its inspiration in the many commonplace scenes that often pass unnoticed through our lives. These might be objects arranged and displayed for sale or some scaffolding on a building site. To these scenes, John brings his particular eye to focus on what might pass us by in the daily rush that is urban life in Southern Africa.
